NOTICE:
As activity by and for troops against the war increases, that takes time away from GI Special work. That means it’s not possible to reply with thanks as often for the fine news and letters sent in by troops, military family members, veterans, and civilians who understand why nothing is more likely to shorten the war than reaching out to the troops person to person, face to face, including the National Guards and Reserves who live right next to you. It’s very hard to fight a war without an armed force willing to do it.

So, please accept this way of expressing respect for and hand in hand solidarity with everybody who sends in all the good stuff. If I win the lottery, this work will be full time instead of done after the day job. T.

The Resistance:
“Now We Gather In Broad Daylight. The People Know We Are Returning To Power”

[Thanks to Don Bacon, The Smedley Butler Society, who sent this in.]

Oct. 2, 2006 By Ron Moreau, Sami Yousafzai and Michael Hirsh, Newsweek & 25 September 2006 Power and Interest News Report [Excerpts]

You don’t have to drive very far from Kabul these days to find the Taliban.

In Ghazni province’s Andar district, just over a two-hour trip from the capital on the main southern highway, a thin young man, dressed in brown and wearing a white prayer cap, stands by the roadside waiting for two NEWSWEEK correspondents.

It is midday on the central Afghan plains, far from the jihadist-infested mountains to the east and west. Without speaking, the sentinel guides his visitors along a sandy horse trail toward a mud-brick village within sight of the highway. As they get closer a young Taliban fighter carrying a walkie-talkie and an AK-47 rifle pops out from behind a tree. He is manning an improvised explosive device, he explains, in case Afghan or U.S. troops try to enter the village.

In a parched clearing a few hundred yards on, more than 100 Taliban fighters ranging in age from teenagers to a grandfatherly 55-year-old have assembled to meet their provincial commander, Muhammad Sabir.

An imposing man with a long, bushy beard, wearing a brown and green turban and a beige shawl over his shoulders, Sabir inspects his troops, all of them armed with AKs and rocket-propelled grenade launchers.

He claims to have some 900 fighters, and says the military and psychological tide is turning in their favor. “One year ago we couldn’t have had such a meeting at midnight,” says Sabir, who is in his mid-40s and looks forward to living out his life as an anti-American jihadist. “Now we gather in broad daylight. The people know we are returning to power.”

Not long after NEWSWEEK’s visit, U.S. and Afghan National Army forces launched a major attack to dislodge the Taliban from Ghazni and four neighboring provinces.

But when NEWSWEEK returned in mid-September, Sabir’s fighters were back, performing their afternoon prayers.

It is an all too familiar story. Ridge by ridge and valley by valley, the religious zealots who harbored Osama bin Laden before 9/11, and who suffered devastating losses in the U.S. invasion that began five years ago next week, are surging back into the country’s center.

There are reports that the Taliban are now operating in battalion-size units of about 400 men as compared to the company-size units of about 100 men last year.

In Ghazni and in six provinces to the south, and in other hot spots to the east, Karzai’s government barely exists outside district towns. Hard-core Taliban forces have filled the void by infiltrating from the relatively lawless tribal areas of Pakistan where they had fled at the end of 2001.

They feed on the people’s disillusion with the lack of economic progress, equity and stability that Karzai’s government, NATO, Washington and the international community had promised.

Jabar Shilghari, one of Ghazni’s members of Parliament, is appalled by his province’s rapid reversal of fortune. Only a year ago he was freely stumping for votes throughout the province. Today it’s not safe for him to return to his own village.

In a recent meeting he asked Karzai for more police and soldiers; he was rebuffed by the deputy director of intelligence, who told him the Taliban threat in Ghazni is minimal.

“We have patiently waited five years for change, for an end to official corruption and abuse of power and for economic development,” says Shilghari, who now lives in the increasingly sequestered capital of Kabul. “But we’ve received nothing.”

Not long ago, the Bush administration was fond of pointing to Afghanistan as a model of transformation.

But the harsh truth is that five years after the U.S. invasion on Oct. 7, 2001, most of the good news is confined to Kabul, with its choking rush-hour traffic jams, a construction boom and a handful of air-conditioned shopping malls.

Most worrisome, a new failed-state sanctuary is emerging across thousands of square miles along the Afghan-Pakistan border. The enclave’s fluid borders span a widening belt of territory from mountainous hideouts in the southernmost provinces of Afghanistan: Nimruz, Helmand and Farah, up through the agricultural middle of the country in Ghazni, Uruzgan and Zabul, and then north to Paktia and parts of Konar.

There are not nearly enough U.S., Western or Afghan troops or resources in the field to counter them.

Two weeks after NEWSWEEK’s visit to Ghazni province’s Andar district, the American general [Eikenberry] passed through the same area and urged Afghan security forces to be more active in combating the increasingly aggressive, large and visible Taliban presence.

Days later, Eikenberry launched his major Afghan-U.S. operation in Ghazni, code-named Mountain Fury.

Most of the Taliban had easily escaped to the east while a number of insurgents remained behind to engage the enemy, firing automatic weapons and RPGs.

According to Afghan officials, about 38 Taliban were killed that day. Interviewed after the action, Momin Ahmad, the Taliban’s deputy commander for a cluster of Andar villages, disputes that number. He says he lost only four men: a Pakistani, an Iraqi and two local insurgents who were killed by an Apache helicopter that shot up a local vineyard.

And while Ahmad’s unit is now regrouping to the east, at least 35 Taliban have stashed their weapons and stayed in the village posing as farmers.

They will lay ambushes and plant IEDs to harass Afghan and U.S. troops, Ahmad says, and the larger Taliban force will return when it’s safe.

He shrugs off the setback, saying it’s only temporary. “We never expected the success we’ve had,” says Ahmad. Nor, five years ago, did anyone else.

IRAQ WAR REPORTS

Soldier’s Death Leaves Swampscott Stunned, Sad

September 22, 2006 By Michael Levenson, Globe Staff

SWAMPSCOTT: Memories of Jared Raymond’s life permeate this seaside town.

Jean Marino recalls the polite boy who grew up across the street and liked to make snow angels in her backyard. She recalls the tall, strong soldier hugging and kissing her when he came back from Iraq for a few weeks in July.

Rick McCarriston, a Swampscott police officer, recalls the car-crazy teenager who filled his cruiser with gas at the Gulf Station and wanted to know everything there was to know about V-8s and V-6s.

Jim Raymond recalls the earnest nephew who always wanted to be a Boston police officer, until he declared after Sept. 11, 2001, that he wanted to join the military. He recalls the eager 18-year-old who enlisted in the Army in July 2004, a month after graduating from Swampscott High School.

And now, those memories are tinted with grief.

On Tuesday, Raymond, 20, was killed in Iraq when his tank was struck by an explosive device, his family said.

He was the first person from Swampscott to die in combat since the Vietnam War, and his death sent shock waves through this town of about 14,000. At the Veterans of Foreign Wars post and elsewhere, flags flew at half-staff. Everywhere, it seemed, people were talking about Jared.

“It’s a deep blow to the town,” said John Sacherski, 60, a Vietnam veteran and commander of the local VFW post.

An only child, Raymond lived with his mother, Jaclyn, and grandmother, Agnes. He liked sports and played lacrosse in high school, but cars were his real passion. He owned a white Pontiac Firebird and read car manuals as some teenagers read comic books, his uncle said.

McCarriston, a fellow car buff, said that he and Jared Raymond would talk cars for hours by the pump at the Gulf Station. He remembered how politely Raymond would interrupt their conversations to attend to other customers, saying, “Sorry, just one minute, sir.”

“He was the kind of kid, that if you had a son, you’d want him to be like Jared,” McCarriston said.

Jared Raymond’s grandfather, Jack, had served in the Army in Korea, but it was the terrorist attacks five years ago that convinced Jared Raymond, then 15, that he should enlist, his uncle said.

“After 9/11, it changed his course,” Jim Raymond said. “He said he wanted to go serve.”

When Jared Raymond completed basic training, his family took out an ad in the local newspaper congratulating him. “Love, Mom and Nana,” it was signed. On New Year’s Day, Jared Raymond shipped out to Iraq.

“He was very proud to be a tanker,” Jim Raymond said.

When he came home in July, his mother rented him a Corvette and bought him Red Sox tickets. The town installed a blinking road sign at the end of his street: “Welcome Home Jared,” read the message in orange lights.

“He was one in a million,” said Marino, 84.

This week, his family found out he had died, Jim Raymond said.

Army Lieutenant Colonel Lee Packnett said Raymond, an Army specialist, was killed in Taji, north of Baghdad, the Associated Press reported.

Yesterday, the Raymonds were making funeral arrangements. Jim Raymond said he was touched by the number of people who had stopped by their house, neighbors who recalled Jared Raymond plowing snow from their driveways or helping them lift heavy bags of groceries.

“He was definitely a legacy in this town,” Jim Raymond said yesterday outside the family’s house. “People loved him — teachers, firefighters, politicians. He made a mark in so many people’s lives. You just don’t know it until something like this happens.”

Notes From A Lost War:
A Classic Case Of Imperial Stupidity

September 30, 2006 By Ann Scott Tyson, Washington Post Staff Writer [Excerpt]

[Col. Sean MacFarland, who oversees thousands of U.S. and Iraqi troops fighting in Anbar’s troubled capital] said attacks have decreased 25 percent in Ramadi recently, falling from about 20 to about 15 a day, as local tribes have thrown their support behind Iraqi police recruiting efforts.

However, he declined to say what impact this decline in attacks was having on U.S. troop casualties in Ramadi, where dozens of soldiers and Marines have died since the beginning of summer. [Fewer attacks that produce the same number of casualties are supposed to be a sign of progress for those being attacked? Idiot. Incompetent. Unfit for command. By his way of measuring, Hiroshima was a great sign of progress for Japan. Only one attack, right?]

Senior Pentagon officials have stated emphatically that the U.S. military alone cannot win the war in Iraq, and that political and economic progress is vital to success there. In Anbar province, for example, a Marine intelligence report concluded last month that U.S. forces there faced a military stalemate as insurgents took advantage of weaknesses in the local government and economy.

MacFarland acknowledged such problems in Ramadi, where there is no mayor or effective municipal council.

[Well, there it is. Stupidity on a breathtaking scale. But not the first time in history.

[Take a trip though time with us, back to Boston, March 20, 1776. Hear the arrogant British General say there are problems in Boston “where there is no mayor or effective municipal council.”

[Because he is stupid, and blind, he is clueless that because there is no mayor or effective municipal council made up of traitors who want the British Empire to occupy America, therefore there is no effective municipal council of any kind at all. What a silly man. Boston had a very effective city leadership indeed, with one mission: give aid and comfort to patriots killing British occupation troops. Now think again about Ramadi, and what it has, and what it does not have, and what this idiot occupation General has no clue about.

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

A U.S. soldier examines the wreckage of a car bomb in Kirkuk Sept. 27, 2006. (AP Photo/Yahya Ahmed)

AFGHANISTAN WAR REPORTS

Assorted Resistance Action:
Collaborators Blown Up At Interior Ministry

Sep 29 AFP & Reuters & September 30, 2006 (RFE/RL)

A bomber blew himself up outside the Afghan Interior Ministry in Kabul today, killing at least 12 people and wounding more than 45 others.

Officials say the bomber detonated his explosive device at the ministry’s gate as staff was arriving for work. Many of the wounded are reported to be in critical condition.

Taliban attacked a police checkpost in southern Afghanistan, setting off a two-hour gun battle in which a policeman and two rebels were killed, police said.

The insurgents attacked in Zabul province in southern Afghanistan, which experiences the worst unrest in a Taliban-led insurgency.

Two policeman were wounded.

TROOP NEWS

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

The body of Army Spc. Jared Raymond arrives for burial at Swampscott Cemetery following a funeral Mass in Swampscott, Mass., Sept. 28, 2006. Raymond was killed Tuesday, Sept 19, 2006, when the tank he was driving was hit by an improvised explosive device in Taji, Iraq. (AP Photo/Bizuayehu Tesfaye)

Hundreds Arrested In Week Of Anti-War Actions

Sep 28 Haider Rizvi, (IPS) [Excerpts]

Demonstrations, marches, rallies, vigils and prayer meetings continue to take place in dozens of cities across the United States this week as part of a nationwide campaign aiming to force the administration of President George W. Bush and Congress to end the U.S. occupation of Iraq.

Since last Thursday, when more than 500 anti-war groups and religious organisations signed on to the “Declaration of Peace”, some 250 activists have been arrested in various cities for taking part in nonviolent actions.

Organisers conducted more than 375 actions of civil disobedience and protest in all parts of the country, including Lincoln, Nebraska; Houston, Texas; Des Moines, Idaho; Little Rock, Arkansas; Cincinnati, Ohio; and Fayetteville, North Carolina — which is home to Fort Bragg, the largest U.S. army installation in the world.

Though the campaign is heavily dominated by faith-based groups, many lawmakers, former military veterans, women’s groups and immigrant organisations are also actively participating in the ongoing protests, which were scheduled to wind down Thursday.

The first arrests took place in Washington last week when activists tried to deliver copies of the declaration to officials in the George W. Bush administration as part of their pledge to get involved in actions of civil disobedience.

Other actions that involved arrests were organised at the Senate and House of Representatives, as well as at Congressional offices, military bases and military recruitment centres.

“As citizens and people of faith, we must be our country’s conscience,” said Rev. Lennox Yearwood of the Hip Hop Caucus, one of 34 activists arrested for taking part in the White House action.

As part of the campaign, many activists are staging sit-ins outside the residences of their elected representatives who have not voiced opposition to the Bush policy on the war in Iraq.

“We are spending billions of dollars a week on the occupation of Iraq. This money can be spent on health and education,” said Molly Nolan, a 62-year-old activist who joined others in a protest outside the home of New York Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer.

“New Yorkers need schools and jobs, not this endless war,” the crowd shouted in front of Schumer’s house.

“Along with other politicians, you did not speak out,” said Carolyn Eisenberg, cofounder of a group called Brooklyn Parents for Peace, while directly addressing the senator. “We call upon you to show courage, to stand for principle.”

Like Schumer, many Democratic lawmakers have kept their distance from the anti-war movement, but some have publicly denounced the Bush policy on Iraq.

Signers of the peace declaration have said if their demands are not met by the administration and the Congress towards the end of this phase of civil disobedience, they will organise another round of nonviolent actions beyond September.

According to the latest CNN poll conducted Sep. 22-24, 59 percent of respondents oppose the Iraq war, while 33 percent say things are going “very badly” for U.S. forces in the country. (END/2006)

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 or write to: The Military Project, Box 126, 2576 Broadway, New York, N.Y. 10025-5657

Legal Situation Murky In Troops Fight Against Anthrax Vaccine

October 02, 2006 By Gayle S. Putrich, Army Times Staff writer. Staff writer Gordon Lubold contributed to this story.

Lawyers for six anonymous plaintiffs suing the government over the military’s use of the anthrax vaccine claim that a federal court has ruled the Pentagon acted unlawfully both in ordering all service members to take the vaccine from 1998 through 2004 and in punishing hundreds of troops who refused that order.

But in a reflection of the increasingly tangled nature of the legal fight over the vaccine, the Pentagon is claiming just the opposite.

“DoD continues to believe the Anthrax Vaccine Immunization Program has been administered consistent with the law, and orders to military personnel to be vaccinated were lawful,” said Pentagon spokesperson Cynthia Smith. “No judicial judgment has declared such orders to have been unlawful.”

Sorting out just where things stand is difficult, because at press time the Defense Department had little more to say about the issue other than that the anthrax vaccine program remains under review, as it has been for months.

Another official familiar with the Defense Department policy hinted that changes to the current voluntary vaccine program are imminent but declined to provide details.

All this leaves service members as much in the dark as ever since a federal court shut down the Pentagon’s mandatory vaccine program in late 2004.

At that time, U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan ruled that the Pentagon could not force troops to take the vaccine because the Food and Drug Administration failed to follow its own regulatory procedures in declaring the vaccine safe and effective against all forms of anthrax, including the inhalation variety that defense officials say poses a threat to U.S. forces.

The FDA issued a final ruling to that effect in December 2005, and defense officials hoped that move would force a reversal of Sullivan’s earlier court order stating that the shots could be given only on a voluntary basis, with informed consent.

Defense officials got their wish when a three-judge panel of the U.S. District Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia agreed Feb. 9 that “the injunction is dissolved and this case no longer presents a live controversy on which we may pass judgment.”

That ostensibly opened the door for the Pentagon to resume mandatory vaccinations, but more than seven months later, it still has not done so.

One possible reason: That was not the only legal issue to be resolved. The Pentagon also wanted the appellate court to rule that the government was within its rights all along to order troops to take the vaccine, going back to the dawn of the program in 1998.

Back to Sullivan

The appeals panel kicked that issue back to Sullivan, the original judge, “with instructions to … consider that request.”

But at a Sept. 7 hearing in Sullivan’s court, for reasons that remain unclear, government lawyers did not specifically ask Sullivan to vacate his earlier decision on that specific issue, said Lou Michels Jr., one of the attorneys for the six anonymous service members and Defense Department civilians who are plaintiffs in the lawsuit.

As a result, Sullivan’s ruling that it was illegal for the Pentagon to force anyone to take a vaccine that was not properly approved by the FDA stands, Michels said.

That, in turn, opens the door for any current or former service members who were punished or involuntarily separated for refusing to take the vaccine to seek redress, he said.

“Anybody that suffered damages could go back and ask for their records to be corrected,” he said.

Michels said the government should just admit that service members were punished when they should not have been and voluntarily correct their records.

That the Pentagon has not done so may be due in part to the potential cost of providing back pay, and possibly even retirement pay, to service members whose careers were cut short when they refused to take the vaccine.

No reliable statistics are available on how many troops were punished over the more than six years of the mandatory program, but estimates range from hundreds to more than a thousand. That could drive the cost of providing restitution into tens of millions of dollars, if not several hundred million.

Michels cautioned that petitioning for changes in military records is a lengthy process, and even if a board of corrections agrees that changes should be made, it does not necessarily happen because those decisions must be approved by service officials. There have been instances of the Office of the Secretary of the Navy refusing to sign off on such changes.

“Final approval on this is an exhaustive process,” said Michels, a former Air Force lawyer.

Records correction is an administrative, not legal, process. Each service has its own board, each with slightly different rules.

Vets Fucked Over Again;
Congress Won’t Allow GI Bill Cost Of Living Increases To Cover Cost Of Living Increases

October 02, 2006 By Rick Maze, Army Times Staff writer. [Excerpts]

Monthly GI Bill education benefits will rise 4 percent effective Oct. 1, an increase that only partially keeps pace with rising tuition costs.

The increase, which will show up first in November payments, sets the maximum GI Bill payment for full-time students at $1,075 a month for those with three or more years of active-duty service. Reservists who have not been mobilized for more than a year since Sept. 11, 2001, will get a maximum of $309 a month.

By law, increases are set to match inflation under a formula that was established by Congress in 2001 but did not apply until 2005, the end of a three-year phased adjustment that hiked GI Bill rates by 46 percent.

In 2005, GI Bill rates increased by 3 percent while college tuition and fees increased by 7.8 percent at four-year public institutions and 5.6 percent at four-year private institutions.

This year, while GI Bill payments increase by 4 percent, tuition and fees have increased 7.1 percent at four-year public schools and 5.9 percent at four-year private schools.

Figures for the average college tuition and fees come from the College Board, which tracks trends in college costs and in student aid. Figures for the 2006-07 school year will be released in October.

Lawmakers knew when they created the formula for automatic increases that tuition and fees would rise faster than inflation.

However, the two chief sponsors, Reps. Christopher Smith, R-N.J., and Lane Evans, D-Ill., were unable to win widespread support for a plan to link benefits increases to tuition costs because of the potentially enormous price tag.

At the time, Smith was chairman and Evans the ranking Democrat on the House Veterans Affairs Committee.

Erosion in the value of GI Bill benefits would be much worse if not for a slowdown in tuition increases in the past two years. In 2003, for example, tuition costs jumped 14.1 percent at four-year public institutions and 6 percent at four-year private institutions. In 2004, tuition increased 10.5 percent and 6 percent at four-year public and private schools, respectively.

Sergeant Gets Eight Months For Shoving Soldier Into Stove

[Thanks to Mark Shapiro, who sent this in. He writes: and they call this a ‘military intelligence’ unit.]

September 30, 2006 By Teri Weaver, Stars and Stripes

CAMP HUMPHREYS, South Korea: Racially charged words and a quick physical response during an early-morning gathering in a barracks dayroom left one soldier with severe burn scars and another soldier with a criminal conviction.

During a court-martial Thursday, Sgt. Luke S. Davis, Company A, 527th Military Intelligence Battalion, was sentenced on one count of maiming to eight months of confinement, partial forfeiture of his pay during that time and reduction to the military’s lowest rank.

Meanwhile, Pvt. Robert Kim of the same company and unit is anticipating more reconstructive surgery. He suffered second-degree burns over 15 percent of his body during a July confrontation with Davis, according to testimony and court proceedings.

Kim, who is Asian, has been counseled by his chain of command since the July 4 incident for his choice of words, according to court proceedings. Davis, who is white, said it was Kim’s racially charged story, which Kim testified was meant as a joke, that prompted him to lunge for Kim as he stood near a stove with a pan of hot water.

More than a dozen officers and soldiers from Company A sat through the morning’s trial as Davis admitted he used poor judgment after a night of drinking by letting Kim’s words provoke him.

“I’m very ashamed of my actions,” Davis told Army Col. Gregory Gross, a military judge, before the sentencing. “No matter what the circumstances, my actions were uncalled for and wrong.”

Davis, who had pleaded guilty to the maiming charge, had faced a maximum sentence of one year of confinement, reduction to E-1 and a bad conduct discharge. Earlier in the trial, Gross ruled in favor of the defense on a motion to dismiss a second charge of drunk and disorderly conduct.

About 3 a.m. on July 4, Davis and two other soldiers were hanging out in the barracks day room, Davis told Gross. Earlier that night, Davis said, he’d had about eight to 10 drinks over a seven-hour period.

Kim walked in about 3:30 a.m. to heat up some ramen noodles, Davis told the judge. The other soldiers had been teasing Davis about his body hair, something he told the judge he is very sensitive about.

Kim joined the teasing and said his father had told him white people have more hair than Asians because white people are less evolved, both Davis and Kim recalled in court proceedings.

Davis said he repeatedly asked Kim whether the private was calling him a gorilla, Davis said in court. Kim didn’t respond to the question and mooned Davis and the other soldiers, Davis told the judge. Davis went for Kim, meaning to push him to the floor or against a wall, both Davis and his lawyer, Capt. Jack Ko, said in court.

Instead, Kim crashed onto the hot stove and water, burning his arm, hand, chest and abdomen, according to court proceedings. Kim looked down and saw his hand was white and shriveled, and part of his jersey was seared into his skin, he testified.

Kim had a two-week stay and one reconstructive surgery in the 121st General Hospital on Yongsan Garrison in Seoul, he testified.

“It was completely a joke,” Kim testified Thursday. “I never thought it was Sgt. Davis’ nature to do that.”

Two senior soldiers testified on Davis’ behalf during sentencing, calling him an excellent soldier with an easygoing attitude.

Gross deliberated for almost an hour before handing down the sentence.

“Good luck to you,” Gross told Davis after announcing the sentence. “I have no doubt you are a good soldier and a good person.”

The New Issue Of Traveling Soldier Is Out!

www.traveling-soldier.org/

This issue features:

1. “A solid number, perhaps a majority, of the ordinary soldiers believed this war was bullshit” says a soldier stationed in Baquba, Iraq.
www.traveling-soldier.org/9.06.majority.php

2. A Call From Baghdad – “He refused to wear his flame suit this morning”
www.traveling-soldier.org/9.06.call.php

3. Join the Military Project, an organization dedicated to reaching out to anti-war soldiers. www.traveling-soldier.org/9.06.join.php

4. Dissenting Patriot, U.S. Military: “If we did free them, why is popular support for the insurgency growing? Why is everyone who works with us constantly in fear of kidnapping, torture, and assassination? … Our duty is to speak up against these policies and demand that Iraqis are truly given the chance to determine their own future.” www.traveling-soldier.org/9.06.choice.php

5. Peace Mom Speaks Out: “You soldiers who all are serving our country so honorably have a right to expect respect from our politicians. And, I don’t think you are getting it. … By being out on the streets holding my sign I am not in any way, shape or form disrespecting you soldiers. I am trying to support you.” www.traveling-soldier.org/9.06.peacemom.php

6. Seaman Hutto shares his story of fighting racism and calls on active-duty personnel to rebuild the GI anti-war movement!
www.traveling-soldier.org/9.06.rebuilding.php

7. Download the new Traveling Soldier to pass it out at your school, workplace, or at nearby base. www.traveling-soldier.org/TS14.pdf

IRAQ RESISTANCE ROUNDUP

Assorted Resistance Action;
Militants Storm Iraqi Army Battalion Headquarters

9.29.06 Reuters & Sept 30 (KUNA) & Reuters & Deutsche Presse-Agentur

KERBALA: Militants stormed an Iraqi army battalion headquarters on Friday, freeing five held there.

An Iraqi police officer and his wife were wounded along with four Iraqi civilians during a car explosion targeting the house of the officer in Kirkuk in Northern Iraq.

A source in the Iraqi police in Kirkuk told KUNA that a booby-trapped vehicle blew up outside the house of Colonel Jamal Kamal during which he and his wife were wounded along with four other citizens. Several neighboring homes were also damaged.

Guerrillas captured and executed a translator for U.S. troops south of Hilla, 100 km (62 miles) south of Baghdad.

Two policemen were killed in attacks in and around Kirkuk on Saturday.

In Baquba two Iraqi policemen were shot dead when armed men attacked their patrol, north-east of the city.

Two policemen were killed and two women wounded when guerrillas clashed with police forces in the Doura district of southern Baghdad, police said.

Gunpersons firing from a car killed three Iraqi soldiers, two of them brothers, in the small town of Rashad, 20 km (12 miles) southwest of the northern oil city of Kirkuk, police said. The soldiers were driving to join their unit when the car blocked their way.

IF YOU DON’T LIKE THE RESISTANCE
END THE OCCUPATION

FORWARD OBSERVATIONS

“Men And Women Who Braved The Stockade Or Worse To Denounce The War From Within”

R.B., The New Yorker

The rise of protest against the Vietnam War is more than forty years in the past.

This blunt, heartfelt documentary, directed by David Zeiger, revives those passionate days and restores the historical record with his account of widespread opposition to the war from within the U.S. military itself.

Starting with the lonely voices of Donald Duncan, a Green Beret who resigned his commission in 1965, and Howard Levy, a dermatologist who accepted court-martial rather than train other Army doctors, Zeiger presents men and women who braved the stockade or worse to denounce the war from within.

Jane Fonda is a character here, as she gives a moving account of her activities on behalf of the soldiers themselves.

Along the way, myths are dispelled and dormant outrage reignited: Zeiger’s technique, though conventional, is eloquent, as are the interviewees, whose righteous energy burns as brightly now as in the evocative archival footage.

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 about the first hip-hop antiwar concert against the “War on Terror.”

Some Things Never Change:
One Policy, Two Parties;
“Voting Is Going To Make The Least Amount Of Difference In Stopping This War”

Without commenting on the nature of the resistance leadership, it should be clear to any clearheaded individual who is paying attention that the essential similarity between the Iraqi and Afghani resistance is their desire to get the occupiers out of their country.

From: Ron Jacobs
To: GI Special
Sent: September 29, 2006 8:45 PM

Recently on CNN, Michael Ware reported from Iraq that US commanders have been privately telling him that they need “at least three times as many troops as they currently have there now, be that Iraqi and American or, even better, just three times as many as American troops.”

Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, three retired generals told a Democratic Policy Committee that the military itself needs more members. Indeed, General Eaton was quoted in Army Times as saying in a prepared statement that “The war on terror demands we mobilize the country and significantly increase the size of our ground forces.”

Of course, the general didn’t say how he expected the army to do that, although he mentioned that he thought at least 60, 000 troops would be needed, at least for a start.

If I were one of those in the US who are looking to the Democrats to get them out of the bloody mess created since 2001, I would be pretty nervous that these men (and not policy makers opposed to the war) are speaking to the Democrats’ policy committee.

History tells us that generals that want to expand the military are not interested in ending any war.

Does the name William Westmoreland mean anything to these folks?

It was his philosophy that the war in Vietnam could be won if there were just enough troops there. He thought this when there were 50,000. He thought it when there were 200,000. He even thought it when there were 500,000. And he was wrong.

The generals and the politicians that support them operate from a fundamentally incorrect premise. They do not think that their mission is itself impossible and wrong, only that Washington doesn’t have enough men on the ground.

Although it is remotely possible that a force twice the size of the original invasion force might have achieved the US goal of an Iraq completely controlled by Washington in 2003, the events on the ground since then render any assessment that still believes such a goal to be possible foolish and wrong.

The nationalist resistance and the jihadist opposition combined with the opposition to the occupation by many Shia groups means one thing for certain: Washington will never control Iraq like it wants to. Any government that it supports will never enjoy enough support among the Iraqis to survive its armed and unarmed resistance.

The generals and politicians who still believe such a goal is possible are lying. They may not know it, being so assured of US dominance and the rightness of forcing Washington’s version of freedom on the world’s peoples, but their suggestions that more troops should be sent and more lives wasted is tantamount to negligent homicide.

Unfortunately, that fact probably doesn’t matter.

If the GOP stays in power in Congress, George Bush will continue to get whatever he wants to fight his wars. If the Democrats take control, He will still get most of what he wants, since those legislators that do oppose the war on some level are not only small in number, their voice is extremely weak.

This is in no small part due to the fragmented nature of what all polls tell us is an antiwar majority. Ever since the larger of the two national antiwar organizations, UFPJ, publicly declared its refusal to work with the other national organization ANSWER, those of us opposed to the war are still searching for a national protest we can go to.

It’s not my intention here to get into the nature of the squabble between the leadership of the two organizations, but suffice it to say it has a lot to do with the Democratic Party’s desire to manipulate the masses away from the streets and into the polling booth, as if our choice is between one or the other.

Actually, voting is going to make the least amount of difference in stopping this war. Or the war in Afghanistan.

Which brings me to the recent pronouncements by NATO generals in that country. Apparently, they want more troops there, too.

Why? Because they operate on the same assumptions as the generals speaking to Iraq do. That the war they are fighting can be won.

Without commenting on the nature of the resistance leadership, it should be clear to any clearheaded individual who is paying attention that the essential similarity between the Iraqi and Afghani resistance is their desire to get the occupiers out of their country.

Given this, it doesn’t really matter how many troops the occupiers have in country, they will never win.

That is, unless they kill everyone that opposes them.

It’s not that they’re not trying, if you believe the body counts coming out of both countries. Add to the tens of thousands already dead eight members of a family of eleven killed September 27, 2006 in a raid by US troops that locals termed a “terrorist massacre.”

By the way, the terrorists they were referring to was the US Army.

Going back to General Westmoreland and Vietnam, let me ask one question.

Who won that one, even though Washington did its best to kill everyone that opposed them?

A couple more questions while we’re at it.

Did the Democrats get us out of that one?

Or did they go along with every request for troops and money until the protests in the streets and the military made it difficult to conduct the war and even (at times) govern the country?

What do you think? Comments from service men and women, and veterans, are especially welcome. Send to contact@militaryproject.org or write to: The Military Project, Box 126, 2576 Broadway, New York, N.Y. 10025-5657. Name, I.D., withheld on request. Replies confidential.

Collaborating Rats At Work:
Progressive Democrats Of America & UFPJ Support Law To Continue War On Iraq

“Under this bill’s exceptions, the U.S. could continue its occupation of Iraq.”

September 29, 2006 By CHARLES JENKS, Socialist Worker 9.29.06 [Excerpts]

CHARLES JENKS of the Traprock Peace Center writes on the McGovern bill for U.S. withdrawal from Iraq.

THE PROGRESSIVE Democrats of America (PDA) trumpets its continued support of Rep. James McGovern’s bill (HR 4232) as “a top legislative priority.” PDA urges all to sign its petition to support the bill, as PDA is “committed to cutting off all funding for the deployment of U.S. troops in Iraq and for the removal of all funding for the occupation of Iraq.”

PDA assures its members and Web site visitors that the bill would “end all funding for the deployment of U.S. troops in Iraq; would “in no way prohibit nor interrupt U.S. non-defense funding” in support of “democratic institution building” and reconstruction; and that the bill “provides for the safe, orderly, and honorable withdrawal of the United States from military operations in Iraq.

“By continuing U.S. support for the economic and social reconstruction of Iraqi society and the financial and material needs of Iraqi security, it maintains our moral and political obligations to the Iraqi people, while concretely promoting, supporting, and providing for greater multilateral engagement in these serious tasks,” according to the PDA.

Code Pink and United for Peace and Justice (UFPJ) also support this bill.

Warning flags should go up by just reading PDA’s pitch for the bill.

The bill would not get in the way of the U.S. meddling in governing Iraq—or as PDA puts it “democratic institution-building.” And the bill provides for continued financial and material support for the “security” forces (secret police, military and uniformed police) that the U.S. has established in Iraq.

So a lot of dirty business is allowed by the bill, but how to do that without U.S. troops?

Well, there’s more to the story, a story not told by PDA in its pitch.

How would the U.S. hope to continue shaping Iraq’s governing institutions and its internal “security” forces without U.S. troops?

The bill has certain exceptions to the prohibition of funds to “deploy or continue to deploy the Armed Forces to the Republic of Iraq.” These exceptions show that the bill is a farce, and that PDA has bought, or is trying to sell, a proverbial bill of goods.

The exceptions: It “shall not apply to the use of funds to…provide for the safe and orderly withdrawal of the Armed Forces from Iraq; or…ensure the security of Iraq and the transition to democratic rule by…carrying out consultations with the Government of Iraq, other foreign governments, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the United Nations, and other international organizations; or…providing financial assistance or equipment to Iraqi security forces and international forces in Iraq.”

Under this bill’s exceptions, the U.S. could continue its occupation of Iraq.

Under the first exception, “safe and orderly” withdrawal has no timeframe whatsoever. The military and executive branch would determine what is “safe and orderly.” Can one imagine such a withdrawal lasting indefinitely, if it’s left up to the people who are executing the war and occupation of Iraq? The lack of even an outside date is telling.

Under the second exception, the U.S. could use funds to continue to “ensure the security of Iraq and transition to democratic rule.” Which international military force is mentioned first in these “consultations?” NATO, the same NATO (via its International Security Assistance Force) that is trying (and failing) to help the U.S. occupy Afghanistan.

On top of using NATO, or United Nations (UN) proxies, the U.S. could still pour unlimited funds into the hands of Iraqi-led internal security forces: the same forces that are now riddled with Shiite militias and are aiding and abetting, if not operating, death squads aimed at the Sunni population.

Moreover, the U.S. could use unlimited funds to pay for U.S.-led private “security” contractors, which are ubiquitous in Iraq as it is, or pay for proxy forces provided by foreign governments.

Halliburton would have nothing to fear from this bill.

And if U.S. troops were assigned to NATO or the UN, and under NATO or UN command, would these troops then be considered part of “international forces in Iraq” that could be funded?

In a nutshell, the U.S. could get its troops out—at a time of its choosing, after an unspecified period in the name of safety and order—but ensure that Iraq continues under foreign occupation indefinitely.

And during this continued occupation, the U.S. would have no restraints on meddling the Iraq’s government or internal security forces.

And PDA calls this “honorable?” Perhaps so, if honorable means trying to win without (the U.S. having to bear more casualties of) war.

Finally, the concept of an “honorable” withdrawal seems like a sick joke, considering that the U.S. is responsible for the deaths and maiming of untold numbers of Iraqis, (well over 100,000 deaths, per the Lancet Medical Journal study as of September 2004); the littering of Iraq with depleted uranium—a cancer-causing radioactive neurotoxin—and unexploded cluster bombs; the wrecking of Iraq’s infrastructure and society; and the unleashing of a sectarian civil war.

OCCUPATION REPORT

Khalilzad’s Stupid Lie Won’t Work Any More

Sept 30, 2006 By Amit R. Paley and Sudarsan Raghavan, Washington Post [Excerpt]

In a wide-ranging 45-minute interview at the ambassador’s residence, [U.S. ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad also acknowledged that the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 was partly responsible for the violence engulfing Iraq, creating a “moral responsibility” for the United States to remain in the country to help solve the Sunni-Shiite bloodletting.

“They need our help,” he said.

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

9.27.06 By Amit R. Paley Washington Post Staff Writer, Washington Post

A strong majority of Iraqis want U.S.-led military forces to immediately withdraw from the country, saying their swift departure would make Iraq more secure and decrease sectarian violence, according to new polls by the State Department and independent researchers.

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

DANGER: POLITICIANS AT WORK

GEORGE BUSH: POLITICAL GENIUS
The Commander-in-Chief Speaks

As late as November 2003, Mr. Bush is quoted as saying of the situation in Iraq: “I don’t want anyone in the cabinet to say it is an insurgency. I don’t think we are there yet.” September 29, 2006 DAVID E. SANGER, New York Times

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

Every Democrat Senator Votes For More Death In Iraq “With Minimal Debate”
[As Usual, “Supporting The Troops” By Killing Them Off]

[Next time you meet one of those lying, betraying, “leaders” trying to sell you on some rat Democrat Senator, like Kucinich, or Feingold, or whoever, as a way to get our troops out of Bush’s Slaughterhouse, cram this up their ass with a sharp stick.

[They assume you’re so stupid you’ll fall for it and line up behind these killers. They may have their differences with the Republicans, but when it comes to butchering U.S. troops to defend the Empire, they all agree on that, 100%. T]

September 30, 2006 By ANDREW TAYLOR, Washington Post Staff Writer [Excerpt]

WASHINGTON: The Senate unanimously approved $70 billion more for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan Friday as part of a record Pentagon budget.

The bill, now on its way to the White House for President Bush’s signature, totals $448 billion.

It was passed by a 100-0 vote after minimal debate.

9/11:
Looking For A Smoking Gun?
How About Two?

September 29, 2006 By DAVID E. SANGER, The New York Times [Excerpt]

Mr. Woodward writes that in the weeks before the Sept. 11 attacks, Mr. Tenet believed that Mr. Rumsfeld was impeding the effort to develop a coherent strategy to capture or kill Osama bin Laden.

Mr. Rumsfeld questioned the electronic signals from terrorism suspects that the National Security Agency had been intercepting, wondering whether they might be part of an elaborate deception plan by Al Qaeda.

On July 10, 2001, the book says, Mr. Tenet and his counterterrorism chief, J. Cofer Black, met with Ms. Rice at the White House to impress upon her the seriousness of the intelligence the agency was collecting about an impending attack. But both men came away from the meeting feeling that Ms. Rice had not taken the warnings seriously.

“U.S. Senate Last Night Gave President Bush The Legal Authority To Abduct And Sexually Mutilate American Citizens And American Children”

September 29, 2006 Paul Joseph Watson, Prison Planet.com [Excerpts]

Slamming the final nail in the coffin of everything America used to stand for, the boot-licking U.S. Senate last night gave President Bush the legal authority to abduct and sexually mutilate American citizens and American children in the name of the war on terror.

There is nothing in the “detainee” legislation that protects American citizens from being kidnapped by their own government and tortured.

Yale Law Professor Bruce Ackerman states in the L.A. Times, “The compromise legislation…authorizes the president to seize American citizens as enemy combatants, even if they have never left the United States. And once thrown into military prison, they cannot expect a trial by their peers or any other of the normal protections of the Bill of Rights.”

Similarly, law Professor Marty Lederman explains: “this (subsection (ii) of the definition of ‘unlawful enemy combatant’) means that if the Pentagon says you’re an unlawful enemy combatant — using whatever criteria they wish — then as far as Congress, and U.S. law, is concerned, you are one, whether or not you have had any connection to ‘hostilities’ at all.”

We have established that the bill allows the President to define American citizens as enemy combatants. Now let’s take it one step further.

Before this article is dismissed as another extremist hyperbolic rant, please take a few minutes out of your day to check for yourself the claim that Bush now has not only the legal authority but the active blessings of his own advisors to torture American children.

The backdrop of the Bush administration’s push to obliterate the Geneva Conventions was encapsulated by John “torture” Yoo, professor of law at Berkeley, co-author of the PATRIOT Act, author of torture memos and White House advisor.

During a December 1st debate in Chicago with Notre Dame professor and international human rights scholar Doug Cassel, John Yoo gave the green light for the scope of torture to legally include sexual torture of infants.

Cassel: If the president deems that he’s got to torture somebody, including by crushing the testicles of the person’s child, there is no law that can stop him?

Yoo: No treaty.

Cassel: Also no law by Congress, that is what you wrote in the August 2002 memo?

Yoo: I think it depends on why the President thinks he needs to do that.

Received:

“Thanks For The Introduction To Aharon Shabatai And To His Poetry”

To: GI Special
From: F
Sent: September 29, 2006
Subject: I was glad I was not one of those who hated; I was glad I was not one of those made sick and murderous by pride.

Dear G Special,

Thanks for the introduction to Aharon Shabatai and to his poetry:

‘In the name of the beautiful books I read
in the name of the kisses I kissed
May the army be defeated’

I was reading Black Commentator and their commemoration of the 1906 white race riots in Atlanta.

A man who was then a 13 year old boy wrote of his personal memories:

“A voice which we recognized as that of the son of the grocer with whom we had traded for many years yelled, “That’s where that nigger mail carrier lives! Let’s burn it down! It’s too nice for a nigger to live in!”

“In the eerie light Father turned his drawn face toward me. In a voice as quiet as though he were asking me to pass him the sugar at the breakfast table, he said, “Son, don’t shoot until the first man puts his foot on the lawn and then—don’t you miss!”

“The mob moved toward the lawn. I tried to aim my gun, wondering what it would feel like to kill a man. Suddenly there was a volley of shots. The mob hesitated, stopped.

“Some friends of my father’s had barricaded themselves in a two-story brick building just below our house. It was they who had fired. Some of the mobsmen, still bloodthirsty, shouted, “Let’s go get the nigger.”

“Others, afraid now for their safety, held back. Our friends, noting the hesitation, fired another volley. The mob broke and retreated up Houston Street.

‘In the quiet that followed I put my gun aside and tried to relax. But a tension different from anything I had ever known possessed me. I was gripped by the knowledge of my identity, and in the depths of my soul. I was vaguely aware that I was glad of it. I was sick with loathing for the hatred which had flared before me that night and come so close to making me a killer; but I was glad I was not one of those who hated; I was glad I was not one of those made sick and murderous by pride.”

I am sure that a lot of our American troops in Iraq identify with the Iraqis and not with “those made sick and murderous by pride”.

From the point of view of these men and their families, one of the greatest crimes of the Cheney administration, I’m sure the greatest crime, is its having made murderers of those American troops it has not murdered.

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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