[Thanks to Mark Shapiro]

“Bring On The Revolution”
British Soldiers Back Army Chief Who Called For Iraq Withdrawal “Soon”:
“The General Has Laid Down The Gauntlet To The Government. It Is Now Time That We Stood Behind Him”
“If He Gets The Sack, Watch Out For Fireworks: If He Has Had The Balls To Stand Up For Us, We Should Do The Same”
“When B’liar Is Put Up Against The Wall, Can I Shoot Him??????”
“Bring On The Revolution”

Comment: T

This General is no prize. He loves the Empire in his own way and thinks the British troops in Iraq should all be sent off to die in the even more hopeless war to occupy Afghanistan.

He thinks that war is just fine, a stupid point of view heard from some politicians here in the USA as well, who forget the Afghan resistance in the 1980s trashed the second greatest armed force in the world, the Russians, and brought down the Russian Empire with it. Afghanistan was Russia’s Vietnam.

What’s important is this: his babbling about getting out of Iraq “soon” opened the door a crack, and just look what comes busting through.

The pressure from below in the British Army against the Iraq war is immense.

If British troops rebel against the war, that’s what’s important, not whether they do so carrying General Dannatt on the tips of their bayonets as they march on Parliament.

No, they would not do all that just to go merrily off to Afghanistan.

Should this crisis gather force, he provides a useful and later disposable screen. T

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

“(Arguably, pursuing the truth and bringing the boys home is his agenda!) This might turn out to be one of those moments when the world turns and Governments fall; I certainly hope so!”

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

October 13, 2006 By Devika Bhat, Times Online [Excerpts]

The call from General Sir Richard Dannatt that British forces should leave Iraq “sometime soon” has met with overwhelming support on the unofficial Army Rumour Service website…

“…I am thoroughly heartened by this and have the beginings of a thaw in the cynicism which has dogged my service thinking since 2003,” admits Jim P Pulfrew.

Some are less diplomatic in their praise for Sir Richard and criticism of the Government. “He’s got a hell of a pair of moral balls on him, I’ll give him that! I imagine B’liar is in a bit of a cold sweat/hot rage now,” says 303SMLE.

“Politicians can’t grasp the idea of someone telling the truth, they’ll all just assume he is chasing some kind of agenda.

(Arguably, pursuing the truth and bringing the boys home is his agenda!) This might turn out to be one of those moments when the world turns and Governments fall; I certainly hope so!”

Brewmeister adds: “I think even Teflon Tony is going to find it difficult to weasel his way out of this. If Sir Richard goes it’s time for a coup.”

Stooge notes: “I don’t think his comments will ‘fall on deaf ears’. I’m pretty sure there are hundreds of people in Whitehall who have by now heard about his comments and panicing. At the very least some of them will have a sleepless night trying to make this seem less ‘bad’.

Many say the comments were long overdue and call for the Army to gather in support of Sir Richard should his position come under threat.

“After years and years, AT LAST someone at the top, who makes the headline on the news, has had the balls to stand up and be counted,” says Brandt.

“If he gets the sack, watch out for fireworks: If he has had the balls to stand up for us, we should do the same.”

DigitalGeek adds: “The General has laid down the gauntlet to the Government. It is now time that we stood behind him.”

Drop Short adds: “It is about time that our senior generalship actually stopped being part of the government and stood up for what is in the best interests of the Service. Bring on the revolution”

Right, when B’liar is put up against the wall, can I shoot him??????: The matelot
[For an informative experience, check out “matelot” on your Google, entry #1 T]

MORE:

Wikipedia: The Army Rumour Service

The Army Rumour Service (ARRSE) is an unofficial British Army website & forum. Known colloquially as ARRSE, a moniker derived from the British ARmy Rumour Service, the site styles itself as the unofficial voice of the British Army.

It gets more than 5 million page hits per month; is regularly mentioned and quoted in the national press; a significant contributor to a debate on service voting in the House of Lords; supporter of various charities and read by the full spectrum of the British Army from the most junior to extremely senior.

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

IRAQ WAR REPORTS

Marine Killed In Anbar

14 October 2006 Multi National Forces West PAO RELEASE No. 20061014-08

CAMP FALLUJAH, Iraq: One Marine assigned to Regimental Combat Team 5 died Oct. 14 from injuries sustained due to enemy action while operating in Al Anbar Province.

REALLY BAD PLACE TO BE:
BRING THEM ALL HOME NOW

U.S. soldiers from Alfa company 1-17 battalion of the 172nd Stryker brigade combat team during a patrol, in eastern Baghdad, Oct. 2, 2006. (AP Photo/Darko Bandic)

U.S. Airman Killed In Iraq

Oct 14 Reuters

A U.S. airman was killed in action in Iraq on Saturday, the U.S. military said in a statement.

The airman was killed while working with the Iraqi police around the capital, Baghdad, it said, giving no further details.

U.S. military casualties have surged in Iraq in recent weeks.

More than 40 U.S. troops have been killed in Iraq this month. At the current pace, the month would be the deadliest for U.S. forces since January 2005.

AFGHANISTAN WAR REPORTS

Two Foreign Occupation Soldiers Killed, Three Wounded In Kandahar;
Nationality Not Announced

14 October 2006 Terry Friel (Reuters) & Rahim Faiez, Associated Press

Two Nato soldiers have been killed after being attacked by Taliban militants armed with rocket propelled grenades in the Afghanistan province of Kandahar.

Although the nationality of the troops has not been announced, the majority of soldiers stationed in the southern province that borders Pakistan are Canadian.

“Two ISAF soldiers were killed and three wounded during an insurgent attack with rocket propelled grenades and small arms in Kandahar province at about 15:00 local time (10:00 BST) Saturday,” the Nato statement read.

“ISAF troops returned fire with small arms and artillery and called in close air support,” it added.

NATO says its clashes with insurgents have decreased in recent weeks.

[Richmond, Virginia, November 28, 1864: General Robert E. Lee said clashes with General Grant’s forces have decreased in recent weeks.]

Assorted Resistance Action

Oct 14, 2006 (Reuters) & Rahim Faiez, Associated Press

Militants have captured Italian photojournalist Gabriele Torsello.

Torsello was seized by five guerrillas on the highway from the capital of Helmand province to neighboring Kandahar province, the independent Pajhwok news agency quoted traveling companion Gholam Mohammad saying.

Pajhwok said its call to Torsello’s mobile phone was answered by a man saying: “We are the Taliban and we have abducted the foreigner on charges of spying.”

A roadside bomb exploded outside a provincial governor’s compound on Saturday — the third attack in five weeks against a provincial leader. The governor of the eastern Afghan province was not hurt but another official was killed, police said.

Six Afghan soldiers were killed as a roadside bomb struck their convoy in the eastern Paktia province on Saturday, provincial police chief Abdul Hanan Raufi said.

“The incident took place in Zazai Aryub district when the enemies detonated a remote-controlled bomb, killing six Afghan soldiers and damaging a military vehicle,” Raufi told Xinhua.

One bombing killed one government employee and wounded two others in the eastern Laghman province, while another wounded six Afghan soldiers in the southern Kandahar province.

The governor of the eastern Laghman province escaped injury after someone placed a bomb hidden in a plastic bag in an irrigation ditch opposite the governor’s compound, said Khalil Rahmani, deputy provincial police chief. It was detonated by remote control as the governor was arriving by car.

Late Friday, Taliban militants attacked a police patrol in Zabul province, sparking a firefight that left two police dead.

TROOP NEWS

“If You Weren’t Ambushed On The Road During The Day, You Worried About Being Mortared In The Camp At Night”

10/14/2006 By Dick Yarbrough, Gwinnett Daily

It has been one year since I was in Iraq with Georgia’s 48th Brigade Combat Team in the infamous Triangle of Death. Unlike any experience I have had before or since, this one gets more vivid with each day that passes.

I got eyeball-to-eyeball with the war when an IED — improvised explosive device — narrowly missed putting some serious hurt on our Humvee while we were on patrol.

I can still hear the explosion. The crew yelling, “Get out of here! Get out of here!” Smoke everywhere. Gun ships thumping overhead trying to locate the bad guys who set it off. It seemed like a scene out of a movie, only it was real. Very real. We later saw the crater the bomb had created. It was huge. Thank God, the bombers were about two seconds too slow. Timing is everything.

In our crew that day were Sgts. James Rackley of Montezuma, Eric Farmborough and Mahlon Williams, both of Statesboro, and Bruce Robinson of Buena Vista. Robinson was the gunner, a particularly dangerous job because he is exposed and is an easier and more immediate target for snipers.

I called Bruce Robinson at home the other day to see how he is doing and to ask him if he remembered that day. “I do,” he said, “because it was not a place where we expected them to have a bomb. Most of the IEDs were on the main roads.”

When we were hit, we were on a winding ramp leading up to a treacherous highway known as Tampa Road. He added that he had experienced about 10 other such incidents while on patrol.

I told him I had received a Combat Action badge, signifying that I had officially been in battle. “Good for you,” Robinson said. “You earned it.” I thought so, too, but it was nice to hear it from a real warrior.

Robinson was an independent truck driver in Georgia before being called to active duty. He told me in Iraq he wasn’t sure what it would be like to drive on our highways when he returned home without worrying about a bomb going off under him, or someone dropping a grenade from a bridge.

After all, this was a way of life for him and the other members of Georgia’s 48th.

Robinson told me that he was, in fact, on the road again. He is driving a long-haul route throughout the Southeast for Yellow Transportation.

How does he feel now that he is back behind the wheel?

“I still get spooked,” he admits, “I am constantly scanning the road, just like I did in Iraq. I am still looking to see if there is anybody on the side of the road or on the overpasses. It is just something that takes a long time to get over, and I’m not sure I ever will.”

Robinson says before he could bring himself to get back to his old career, he had to take some “downtime.” I’m sure he is not alone.

Robinson recalled for me the bad days in Iraq retrieving wounded comrades in the field and rushing them to landing pads to be airlifted to medical facilities, and the good days of the intense volleyball competition in camp after having spent the day surviving Iraq’s mean roads.

He says he still isn’t sleeping well, even though he has been home for almost six months.

No wonder.

In Iraq, you sleep with one eye open. If you weren’t ambushed on the road during the day, you worried about being mortared in the camp at night. Who can sleep in conditions like that?

It was good to hear his voice again. Bruce Robinson is an ordinary Georgian who, like his 4,800 comrades from one end of the state to the other, left his job and family, was put in a dangerous situation not of his choosing and did everything that was asked of him while there.

I don’t know if our paths will ever cross again, but I will never forget that for one fateful moment last October, he and I were brothers. And forever will be.

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

Medical personnel unload from a Black Hawk helicopter at Balad Air Base. Military doctors say most of the U.S. injuries in Iraq are from explosive devices and shrapnel, with legs and arms especially vulnerable because they are not shielded by body armor. (U.S. Air Force photo/Airman 1st Class Chad M. Kellum/Handout/Reuters)

Thieving Captains And Majors Gaming Combat Pay System

October 16, 2006 By Rick Maze, Army Times Staff writer [Excerpts]

A review of three years’ worth of travel vouchers seems to show that some people are timing their trips into combat zones to double up on financial benefits, congressional auditors say.

The bipartisan Government Accountability Office said in a new report that a number of trips into combat zones look suspicious because they were of short duration and spanned the end of one month and the beginning of another, which allowed travelers to claim two months of danger pay and two months of federal tax exclusion on their earnings.

The GAO found 1,576 “cross-month” trips from fiscal 2003 through fiscal 2005, with the numbers shooting up markedly in that last year reviewed. More than 1,000 of those trips lasted two weeks or less, and 285 lasted less than a week.

Six cross-month trips lasted just two days. Those trips were to Afghanistan, Haiti, Iraq and the Philippines, the report says. Troops can earn a full month of danger pay or tax benefits even if they stay in the designated area for less than one day.

Of the 1,576 trips, most were to designated combat zones in Iraq, Afghanistan and Bosnia, but the investigation involved other areas that qualify troops for danger pay but are not combat zones for federal tax benefits. Danger pay is authorized in 33 areas worldwide.

Most of the cross-month travel cited by the GAO involved Army and Air Force members, primarily O-3s and O-4s. [CPT and MAJ]

The report by the investigative arm of Congress does not directly accuse anyone of fraud, but it says there are many suspiciously timed trips and a lack of control to prevent abuse.

The GAO recommended that Congress ask for regular reports from the Pentagon about cross-month travel to keep a watch on how money is spent. [Wow, that will sure do a lot of good.]

Arranging trips to span two calendar months can be lucrative. Danger pay is $225 a month, while the full monthly pay of enlisted members and warrant officers, and up to $6,724.50 in monthly pay for officers, is exempt from federal income taxes if a service member spends one day in an area that qualifies him for those benefits.

War Profiteering In Senators’ Office
[What Else Is New?]

10.11.06 USA Today

The FBI is investigating whether a member of Sen. Arlen Specter’s staff broke the law by helping her husband, a lobbyist, secure almost $50 million in Pentagon spending for his clients.

Loan Sharks: Go Shit In Your Hats:
Lawmakers Outlaw Ripping Off Troops

[After enough protests, even the assholes in Congress can sometimes be forced to act. T]

October 16, 2006 By Karen Jowers, Army Times Staff writer

Within a year, a new law will make it illegal for creditors to offer payday loans and car title loans to military borrowers, whether through brick-and-mortar storefronts or over the Internet.

For other consumer loans, creditors can charge no more than 36 percent in annual interest to military borrowers, eliminating loans costing troops annual rates of 800 percent or more, in extreme cases.

The costs of any fees, service charges, renewal charges, credit insurance premiums and any product sold with the loan must be included in the calculation of the rate.

The new provisions, part of the 2007 defense authorization bill passed by Congress and awaiting President Bush’s signature, take effect when the Defense Department comes up with regulations to implement them or by Oct. 1, 2007, whichever comes first.

Creditors who violate the law face a fine, up to a year in jail or both for a misdemeanor offense.

Going far beyond the provisions earlier introduced by lawmakers, many of the changes resulted from the Pentagon’s recommendations in an August report to Congress on payday lending.

Lenders will no longer be able to lend money using a check, or any other means of access to a financial account, as security for a loan. This affects storefront payday lenders, as well as Internet payday lenders, who often gain electronic access to military borrowers’ accounts.

The law will not be retroactive, and service members with outstanding payday loans when the law takes effect will have to pay them off. It will not apply to residential mortgage loans or loans for buying a vehicle or other personal property.

The changes will mean that “lenders can’t have the upper hand over service members,” said Jean Ann Fox, director of consumer protection for the Consumer Federation of America.

“No lender should be soliciting money” based on what is essentially a bad check, she said.

The new changes also will “require some thinking by those who provide financial education,” Fox said. “There’s real work to be done at the transition point. I have real confidence that state regulators, financial educators, military relief societies, military banks and credit unions and others will come together.”

Once the law takes effect, it will prohibit:

Creditors from requiring a service member to set up an allotment as a condition of getting a loan.

Creditors from using the title of a vehicle as security for a loan to service members or their family members.

Creditors from using a check or other means of access to a military borrower’s financial account as security for a loan.

Creditors from rolling over, renewing, repaying, refinancing or consolidating any consumer credit using proceeds of other credit extended by that same creditor to the military borrower.

Creditors from forcing service members to waive their rights under any state or federal law, including the Servicemembers’ Civil Relief Act.

Creditors from denying military borrowers the option of prepaying the loan and from charging a penalty for paying off part or all of the loan early.

Creditors from making unreasonable demands to make it difficult for the service member to take a creditor to court.

States from allowing creditors to violate or waive any state consumer loan protections for military borrowers simply because the borrowers are nonresidents, or because of their military status.

IRAQ RESISTANCE ROUNDUP

Assorted Resistance Action

13:03:
10/14/06 IRIB News & Reuters

In Baghdad clash, two members of the national police were wounded when a roadside bomb exploded near their patrol on Saturday.

Iraqi army sources told KUNA, clashes erupted between the Iraqi army and a group of armed insurgents late last night in Al-Riyadh area in Al-Huwaija, south west of Kirkuk. The insurgents fired a number of mortar shells at army locations and then attacked a defunct checkpoint.

Five Iraqi soldiers were injured in the clashes and were taken to the hospital for medical attention.

Three policemen were wounded when two mortar rounds hit their building near the town of Hawija southwest of the northern oil city of Kirkuk, police said.

In Baghdad, an employee of government-run TV was killed in a drive-by shooting Friday night, police said. Raed Qais al-Shammari, a technician with the al-Iraqiya station, was standing near his home talking with a friend when he was shot from a car in the Dora neighborhood, police said.

IF YOU DON’T LIKE THE RESISTANCE
END THE OCCUPATION

FORWARD OBSERVATIONS

At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. Oh had I the ability, and could reach the nation’s ear, I would, pour out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke. For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. Frederick Douglas, 1852

“Opposition To The War From Within The Rank And File Forced The Pentagon To Wind Down The Ground War”

May 22, 2006 FKM, Angel Of History [Excerpts]

What sort of resistance to business as usual can we find in the US Military?

We know that a number of retired generals have lately spoken out against the war in Iraq, and a recent Zogby poll showed that 29 % of US troops in Iraq favor immediate withdrawal, while another survey shows 72 percent of them think the US should withdraw within the year.

In March, members of the group Iraq Veterans Against the War marked the third anniversary of the invasion by marching with Katrina survivors from Mobile, Alabama to New Orleans, Louisiana, calling on the government to “Abandon Iraq, not the Gulf Coast!”

Iraq Veterans Against the War are also offering active-duty soldiers free DVDs of the recent film Sir, No Sir!: The Suppressed Story of the GI Movement to End the War in Vietnam, directed by David Zeiger.

Along with the book Soldiers in Revolt: GI Resistance During the Vietnam War, written by David Cortright, and recently reissued with a new introduction by Howard Zinn, it provides an illuminating antidote to the right-wing’s revisionist history of the 60s and 70s.

One canard those works refute is the idea that the US could have won the war if only cowardly Washington politicians had not tied the military’s hands and prevented it from unleashing its awesome power against Vietnam.

Cortright argues that opposition to the war from within the rank and file forced the Pentagon to wind down the ground war.

One problem was personnel shortages. By the Pentagon’s own figures, well over 500,000 “incidents of desertion” occurred between 1966 and 1971; by 1971 entire units were refusing to go into battle in unprecedented numbers. 206,000 never reported for the draft. From 1970 to the end of 1972 (shortly before the draft ended) 145,000 successfully applied for Conscientious Objector status. It wasn’t just the enlisted ranks affected, either: college ROTC ranks, the main source of junior officers, dropped precipitously.

Disciplinary problems further depleted the ranks. Administrative discharges for “unfitness, unsuitability, or misconduct” – including antiwar activity– grew steadily through 1971.

After resistance of the soldiers on the ground led the US government to shift to an air war, such discharges increased in the Air Force, peaking in 1973.

Cortright calls these extra-legal rebellions the “GI Resistance”; which includes the instances of “fragging” in which soldiers killed their commanding officers, often using fragmentation grenades, as well as mutiny and sabotage.

The GI Resistance wasn’t always overtly political or collectively planned, but it reinforced the efforts of what Cortright calls the “GI Movement,” referring to carefully planned opposition within the military and purposeful protest— actions that were designed to exert pressure on politicians and the higher echelons of the military.

GIs signed petitions, placed advertisements in newspapers, formed picket lines, and marched at the head of peace demonstrations. They built organizations, created media, set up networks and agitated.

Another myth challenged by both Cortright’s book Soldiers in Revolt and Zeiger’s film Sir! No Sir! is that draftees led the GI opposition to the war.

In fact, the greatest dissent came from those who had volunteered, the vast majority of whom were from working-class backgrounds.

Many enlistees felt betrayed. One summed up the dynamic when he said, “draftees expect shit, get shit, aren’t even disappointed.

Volunteers expect something better, get the same shit, and have at least one more year to get mad about it.”

Soldiers in Revolt cites a number of studies that found that the bulk of organized resisters in the military had volunteered.

Dissent and sabotage also occurred in the Navy and Air Force, neither of which used conscripts. Finally, the rejection of – and more than occasional rebellion against – the war effort among combat soldiers who were overwhelmingly enlistees confirms Cortright’s assessment.

And far from spitting on returning vets (an urban legend that Sir! No Sir! takes pains to debunk) Civilian anti-war activists provided moral support, counseling, and other forms of legal and political aid.

In an essay in the May 8th issue of the Nation magazine, Christian Parenti argues that the military response to the Vietnam-era GI Movement and Resistance has shaped the current armed forces:

Ending the draft, he writes, excised much of the disgruntled element from the ranks, and by professionalizing the services, it has helped create a deepening military-civilian divide. Within today’s all-volunteer military, there is much more intense solidarity than during the Vietnam era. After Vietnam the military also improved its housing, wages, benefits, food and training; it reached out to the families of soldiers and modernized its disciplinary systems and promotions methods, all of which improved morale.

Another key difference between this war and Vietnam is the use of whole-unit rotations as opposed to individual rotations. In Vietnam a soldier was dropped into a unit for 365 days and then, if he survived, plucked out. In Iraq and Afghanistan, battalions of 500 to 800 soldiers train together, deploy together and come home together. During Vietnam the constant flow of men in and out of line companies fighting the war seriously undermined unit cohesion and camaraderie.

On the other hand, Parenti notes that activist vets all point out that unit cohesion can cut two ways: It works like Kryptonite to stop rebellion, but after a tipping point unit cohesion can serve to make rebellion even more intense.

If 1960s activism was fueled by disillusioned outrage, Parenti suggests, then today’s activism is fettered by a type of world-weary cynicism. Iraq Veteran Against the War Fernando Braga says most of the guys in his unit assume the war is based on lies and that it’s all about oil, but they won’t get involved in peace activism because “They say, ‘You can’t change anything.’

“But if you read history you see that usually people already have changed things,” he says. “Movements have made lots of things happen.”

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.”

Iraq: The End Game:
“For It Isn’t Only The Generals Who Are Opposed To The War”
“The Rank And File Men And Women In Our Military Are Going AWOL, Are Voicing Their Dissent”

The war has been lost. Bush, who clearly had hoped to leave the war as a legacy to the next Administration, is going to see it ended in the next two years. It is ending as I write.

October 13, 2006 By David McReynolds, Edge Left

(David McReynolds, who lives in Manhattan’s Lower East Side, is the former Chair of War Resisters International and was the Socialist Party candidate for President in 1980 and 2000. Edge Left may be freely distributed or republished).

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

After the remarkable beginning of the Iraq War, bitterly opposed by so many millions round the world, the gradual unraveling of the war became clearer. There were no weapons of mass destruction. Bush changed the rational for the invasion to one of “building democracy”. One is curious as to what Bush will say, when he finally has to address the present reality: the war is lost, there will be no democracy, the lives and the money down a black hole.

For months the Republican line has consisted of three arguments (none of them addressing the issue of weapons of mass destruction).

First, “while many can make critiques of past decisions, we must now ‘stay the course’”. (I.e., it is OK to talk about events in the past – but to challenge the current Bush policy was unpatriotic).

Second, “whatever people thought about why we went in, we cannot now ‘cut and run’”, and the Democrats have not outlined what they propose as an alternative”.

Third, “if we don’t fight the terrorists in Iraq, we will fight them here in our own country.”

As it turns out, the Democrats, who, aside from John Murtha, never did have a coherent plan for getting out, didn’t need one. Because the US now doesn’t have any choice.

Recent days, weeks, and months have seen a drum beat of impossibly bad news for the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Rice cabal. Intelligence estimates reported that the dangers of terrorism here had grown worse because of the war in Iraq. Books exposing the administration have come in waves (most particular, Bob Woodward’s State of Denial, which was a surprise because his two earlier books on Bush had been so flattering).

If one watched the news carefully, Rice, our Secretary of State, had to delay her landing at the Baghdad airport last week because of gunfire on the ground, and then, when she was photographed at a press conference, she was wearing a flak jacket. John Warner returned from his latest trip saying the time is almost up. Polls of Iraqi citizens showed an overwhelming majority want the US to leave, and a slight majority now support the insurgent attacks on US troops.

I realize many of you follow the news out of Iraq as closely as I do and there will be little new that I can report. But for those who don’t have a chance to follow it, the reality is that the only part of Iraq the US controls is the Green Zone, the heavily fortified area in Baghdad, which is where the huge US Embassy is located, where almost all the journalists live, and where the government of Iraq is located.

Almost as a fitting cap to the week’s news, insurgent mortar shells set off a huge US ammunition dump in Baghdad, lighting up the night sky in ways that Baghdad hadn’t seen since the first days of the war.

The news this week that the respected British journal, Lancet, reported that 655,000 Iraqis have been killed since the war broke out, told us that things are now clearly worse, for the average Iraqi, than during Saddam’s time. (This figure includes both the victims of sectarian violence and victims of US and British forces).

Bush immediately dismissed the figure – which, given Bush’s record for accuracy, is almost a confirmation of the report.

John Zogby, who runs the respected Zogby polling firm, said on CNN that he felt the poll had been accurate, it followed all the standard methodology for such polls. Buried in the news was the fact that over 600 contractors had been killed – these are civilians (who earn extremely high wages, and often do many of the same jobs as the poorly paid US armed forces do).

So, whether you are watching Secretary of State Rice holding a press conference in a flak jacket, or trying to absorb the death toll of US and civilians in Iraq, or have heard that James Baker has leaked the fact that the report his is working on will confirm that “victory is no longer an option”, we have reached the “end game” for the Iraq War.

The war is lost, but not yet over.

I want to look at some of the problems we face. I think back to the Vietnam War, where at about this time in the war there were decent people who said “yes, but we can’t just leave them now after the mess we have created.”

I remember when I went out to Nyack, New York, to talk with Al Hassler, then Executive Secretary of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, to argue that FOR should be calling for the immediate withdrawal of US forces.

Hassler said “Yes, but David, after all the chaos the US has created, we can’t just leave and abandon these people”. I said “Al, the longer we stay, the worse the situation gets – we are the problem”.

We hear the same cry now from people who opposed the war but say “we can’t just leave”. We can, and we will.

We are already watching a civil war in Iraq. The casualties are largely civilians Shia or Sunni killed not by US forces but by the militias on one side of the other. The US has spent over three years trying to deal with the insurgency – if things have gotten worse instead of better, we need to withdraw.

For those who are too young to remember World War II, one comparison is between the almost useless resistance in the Nazi-occupied countries (I do not discount that resistance – it was courageous but it was almost totally ineffective) to the stunning growth of the insurgency in Iraq.

The US has complete control of the air. It has a range of modern weapons, electronic and otherwise. It has guided missiles. Yet day by day the US has been forced to concede provinces in Iraq to the insurgents. We have retreated to the Green zone.

The tragedy is that the civil war will get worse after we leave, and it will continue to be bloody.

Civil wars are the worst kind – our own Civil War saw a death toll greater than that of World War 1, 2, and the Korean War combined.

When the British left India it is estimated that a million people died in the terrible communal rioting as Pakistan and India “separated”.

What will probably happen is a division of Iraq into Shia and Sunni dominated areas, with the Kurdish area continuing to function almost as a sovereign state. (Almost unnoticed here in the US, the Kurdish part of Iraq has ceased to fly the Iraqi flag). The Shia and Kurdish areas have oil – the Sunnis do not, and may end up the poor man out.

There is also a danger that Turkey will launch an attack on the Kurdish area because it has a large Kurdish population of its own and fears that the creation of a Kurdish state on Turkey’s border would cause unrest within Turkey.

What will not happen is that the US withdrawal from Iraq will unleash a horde of Islamic terrorists on the US.

Al Queda has played a minor role in the Iraq war (it wasn’t there at all until the US invasion: Saddam was sharply opposed to the kind of Islamic fundamentalism of Osama bin-Laden). Most of the violence in Iraq is focused on other Iraqis and when the US withdraws, it will continue to be focused there.

The Shia and the Sunnis have no interest and no reason to attack the US, though they will continue to target US forces as long as they are in Iraq.

What really happens after we leave?

Listening to Bush I am tempted to believe that, alone within the Administration, he may actually believe what he is saying.

What he is saying bears no relationship to the reality of Iraq, but I think he believes it. Rumsfeld, Cheney, Rice, and others, certainly have seen the writing on the wall and one problem for them is what happens “post war”.

While the US death toll is minor if compared to Vietnam (58,000 dead as opposed to under 3,000 dead thus far in Iraq), members of Congress, and the general public, will ask what penalty should be imposed on those who led us into this disaster, which has not only cost us in lives, but in treasure. And which, in the end, will leave us without direct control of the oil.

I know that after the Chinese Revolution in 1949 there was a long period in American politics which Republicans kept asking “who lost China” (as if it had belonged to us), and charging the Democrats with treason.

The humiliation of the US defeat in Vietnam left a wave of recriminations.

But what will happen with the loss of the Iraq War? The Republicans launched it, in violation of the UN Charter. It fits perfectly the definition of a war crime as defined by the Nuremburg Tribunal. So I suspect one question, quietly discussed at the highest levels, is “what happens to us after the defeat?”

Particularly if the Democrats take Congress in November, the door is open to investigations not only of the misconduct of the war, but also of the corruption of the various civilian programs in Iraq, which even today, three years after the war began, leave people in Baghdad with less electricity than they had when the war began.

It is worth remembering that “each war seems essential to our security”.

It was a bitter pill for the Establishment to accept a truce, rather than a victory, in the Korean War.

It was a much greater humiliation to watch our Embassy staff airlifted off the roof of our Embassy in Saigon in 1975. Yet in both wars the establishment argued the US “could not dare lose”.

Well, what happened? China is today a major world power with which the US does a great deal of business.

Vietnam did not extend its grip to all of Indochina, much less invade the Philippines, or Hawaii. It, too, is an area of US investment.

In short, after terrible wars (three million Vietnamese lost their lives during the US invasion of that country) the US is not less secure in the Pacific.

Yes, the US will lose direct control of Iraq’s oil, and, worse from the US point of view, Iranian influence will extend into the Shia area of Iraq.

But oil is a “fungible” commodity, it is worth something only if it is sold, the market for it is international. The effort by some conservatives to “punish” Chavez by refusing to buy oil from Venezuela is, economically, silly: oil is bought and sold like wheat, on the free market, and if US firms don’t buy from Chavez, other countries will.

Given the billions of dollars the US has spent on the Iraq war, wouldn’t it have made more sense to have settled for what will happen now, three years later: to buy the oil on the free market?

For those of us who are far from power, and who will not be humiliated by the US defeat, what will be the situation of the US losing a war it should never have started?

One dreadful result – which gets worse every day the US remains – is the tens of thousands of wounded. Many of these wounds, which would have been lethal in other wars, will leave men and women missing parts of their brains, missing limbs, doomed to face the years to come paying the real price which should have been paid by the members of the Bush Administration.

Other than that, the positive benefit will be similar to that following the loss of Vietnam – a hesitation to go to war again. This is one reason I do not believe there will be an “October surprise” with an attack on Iran or Syria.

For those who want to know what should be done, (and which would help to bring the end of the war in a more orderly way) the US should open diplomatic contacts with Syria and Iran. It should revisit the US position on the Palestinian issue, and push Israel toward taking new positions. (Israel itself should open negotiations with Syria aimed at a final border settlement).

One thing which is worth thinking about: the resistance which is going to end the war comes not just from the military insurgency in Iraq, it also comes from the remarkable rebellion of American generals (and now the head of the British armed forces).

Those who talk of 9.11 conspiracies might better consider the fact that the military has certainly been in touch with each other, that the string of generals who have challenged Bush is not an accident.

John Murtha’s break with Bush was the first major event in breaking the consensus in Congress. Murtha is not a leftist, etc. but rather a fairly typical “Cold War liberal”, always close to the Pentagon. Murtha, himself a veteran with distinguished service (unlike almost all the Bush Administration, most of which safely avoided military service), clearly had been speaking for the military when he first spoke out.

So – don’t give up, continue your pressure on members of Congress, continue the vigils, continue reaching out to our men and women in service.

Friends in other countries should “open dialogues” with every US Embassy in the world.

The war has been lost. Bush, who clearly had hoped to leave the war as a legacy to the next Administration, is going to see it ended in the next two years. It is ending as I write.

For it isn’t only the generals who are opposed to the war.

The rank and file men and women in our military are going AWOL, are voicing their dissent. The crimes and horrors of this war are nearly over.

Most of us have been disheartened by the failure of all our protests to have any impact.

I’ll close with a quote from the Vietnam War, not long before the US lost it.

Discouraged by what seemed our failure to have any effect, I asked the late Paul Goodman what he thought we ought to do.

“David, you are doing all the right things you just have to keep doing them”.

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.

OCCUPATION REPORT

Largest Refinery In Iraq Shut Down For Fourth Day

Oct 14 AFP News

The largest refinery in the country was shut down for the fourth day running due to a lack of electricity Saturday.

The massive Baiji refinery in central Iraq was shut down due to a breakdown of the nearby thermal power station.

“The Baiji refinery stopped its production of products for the fourth successive day due to electricity cuts,” said a refinery official.

When the Baiji refinery is working, Iraq produces 10 million liters of gasoline domestically, barely half of the 22 million liter daily demand.

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

DANGER: POLITICIANS AT WORK

“A Democratic Congress Will Be As Stupid, Cowardly And Corrupt As Its Republican Predecessor”

October 11, 2006 By William S. Lind, Free Congress Foundation [Excerpt]

A post-election Democratic House, Senate or both might in theory say no to another war. But if the Bush administration’s cynicism is boundless, the Democrats’ intellectual vacuity and moral cowardice are equally so.

You can’t beat something with nothing, but Democrats have put forward nothing in the way of an alternative to Bush’s defense and foreign policies.

On Iran, the question is whether they will be more scared of the Republicans or of the Israeli lobby. Either way, they will hide under the bed, just as they have hidden under the bed on the war in Iraq.

It appears at the moment that a Congressional demand for withdrawal from Iraq is more likely if the Republicans keep the Senate and Senator John Warner of Virginia remains Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee than if the Democrats take over.

There is a great deal of material available to the Democrats to offer an alternative, much of it the product of the Military Reform Movement of the 1970s and 80s. Gary Hart can tell them all about it.

There is even a somewhat graceful way out of Iraq, if the Dems will ask themselves my favorite foreign policy question, WWBD: What Would Bismarck Do?

He would transfer sufficient Swiss francs to interested parties so that the current government of Iraq asks us to leave. They, not we, would then hold the world’s ugliest baby, even though it was America’s indiscretion that gave the bastard birth.

But donkeys will think when pigs fly.

A Democratic Congress will be as stupid, cowardly and corrupt as its Republican predecessor; in reality, both parties are one party, the party of successful career politicians.

CLASS WAR REPORTS

Neo-Nazi Filth Run Away When Challenged In New York City

[Thanks to Katherine G, The Military Project, who sent this in. She writes: Some great quotes here! Ms. Garcia verbally demolishes these racists! Solidarity.]

October 11th, 2006 Democracy Now!

The anti-immigration group the Minuteman Project announced yesterday that they are seeking to strip Columbia University of federal funding for what they say are violations of their civil rights. Last week, student demonstrators disrupted a speech by Minuteman founder Jim Gilchrist who was invited to the school by the College Republicans.

Over 20 students stormed the stage after Gilchrist came to the microphone and two students unfurled a banner reading “No human being is illegal.” On Friday, Columbia University President Lee Bollinger issued a statement that read in part: “

The disruption on Wednesday night that resulted in the termination of an event organized by the Columbia College Republicans in Lerner Hall represents, in my judgment, one of the most serious breaches of academic faith that can occur in a university such as ours.”

Bollinger has vowed to launch an investigation into the student’s actions.

But at a press conference on Monday, the students claim that they were assaulted. They point to a video taken by a reporter from Univision. They say it depicts a member of the Minutemen kicking a student in the head.

Jim Gilchrist. Founder of the Minuteman Project and co-author of the book “Minutemen: The Battle to Secure America’s Borders.”

Karina Garcia. Political Chair of the Chicano Caucus at Columbia University. Karina is a senior there.

We asked a representative from Columbia to join us as well but they declined our invitation.

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

AMY GOODMAN: Jim Gilchrist, who was the speaker at the event, joins us now from Irvine, California. He is the founder of the Minuteman Project and the co-author of Minutemen: The Battle to Secure America’s Borders. Here in studio in New York, I’m joined by Karina Garcia. She is the political chair of the Chicano Caucus at Columbia University. Her group organized the protest outside the Minuteman event. We asked a representative from Columbia University to join us as well, but they declined our invitation.

Let’s start with Jim Gilchrist. Can you talk about why you came to Columbia and what your message was?

JIM GILCHRIST: Yes, thanks for having me on your program. We came to Columbia from the invitation of the Republican club, student club at Columbia University, to speak about the book that Dr. Corsi and I wrote — Dr. Corsi also was scheduled to speak right after I was — and also about our views on the illegal immigration crisis that the United States is facing.

We were there simply to disseminate information, not engage in what we’ve been accused of, as some kind of xenophobic racism. It’s simply a lecture presented by three of us: Marvin Stewart, an African American member of my board of directors, Dr. Jerome Corsi, and myself.

AMY GOODMAN: And when you got to the university and you were giving your address, what is your view of what happened?

JIM GILCHRIST: There was a concerted effort to forever shut down the First Amendment by those who disagreed with what we were going to talk about. This is not something new. It’s something that’s been attempted in the past by other either student groups or anarchist groups, the International Socialist Organization, whose goal is to stamp out free speech if they do not agree with it, so this was not something new.

I didn’t expect a storming of the stage, although it didn’t surprise me, because I had mentioned earlier to security that they should have uniformed badge-carrying officers in front of the stage to deter something like that from happening. It’s a shame what happened. It will go down in history forever as a day of infamy in Columbia University’s annals.

AMY GOODMAN: Karina Garcia, your perspective on what happened? And where were you?

KARINA GARCIA: Thank you for having me.

It’s ridiculous for them to have turned it around and say that it’s an issue of free speech.

What we actually saw was two groups exercising their right to freedom of speech. One group was promoting hatred and violence, and the other group was loudly opposing it.

We never asked for the university or for anybody, for that matter, to ban this man from speaking. He was able to reserve a hall in our auditorium. He had the security of the New York City Police Department. He had the security of Columbia University Public Safety. Nobody attacked Mr. Gilchrist.

As a matter of fact, if you look at what his comment was the very next day on FOX News, he laughed about the situation and said that he was ready to give the very first Minuteman knuckle sandwich, which just goes to show how this man wasn’t attacked at all.

As a matter of fact, we were the ones that were attacked, when we went up to unfurl a banner that said “Say No To Racism!” And it was our right and our duty and our obligation to stand up on the stage and say, “This man is a murderer. This man is a racist. And we do not support him.”

AMY GOODMAN: And what then happened, when people went up on the stage?

KARINA GARCIA: When we went up on the stage, we were attacked by the Minutemen, as is evident in the Univision coverage.

AMY GOODMAN: And your response to the president of your university, Lee Bollinger’s statement on Friday?

KARINA GARCIA: I think that he was feeling a lot of pressure from the rightwing media, FOX News, Bill O’Reilly going on TV when the university is in the middle of a capital campaign and telling donors to stop giving money to the university, them turning this into a free speech issue, which it was not.

I think that he was feeling a lot of pressure to react and react quickly without actually seeing the evidence, and I think that if you look at his statement now, I think it’s a lot different once the Univision coverage was shown.

And then it showed who really were the people who were attacked and who were the aggressors in the situation.

JIM GILCHRIST: Outright propaganda.

AMY GOODMAN: Jim Gilchrist, your response.

JIM GILCHRIST: Yes, I’m going to end this interview until — for the outcome of — based on legal advice.

What this lady is doing is putting a complete spin to her advantage. I don’t — I have never murdered anybody. I have never engaged in violence. I have never encouraged any violence or racism, nor has anyone in the Minuteman Project. This was a concerted, premeditated effort by people like Ms. Garcia to stifle the First Amendment.

KARINA GARCIA: What about your ties to the National Alliance?

JIM GILCHRIST: Now, I’m going to end this now, and you can deal with the law firm that’s going to probably name you and your cohorts —

KARINA GARCIA: Cohorts.

JIM GILCHRIST: —as defendants. I’m going to have to end this now, based on advice from legal counsel. I’m sorry.

KARINA GARCIA: Go ahead and run away.

AMY GOODMAN: Jim Gilchrist, I’m puzzled, are you sitting there with a lawyer?

JIM GILCHRIST: That’s it. (line cut)

AMY GOODMAN: We have just been cut off from our contact with Jim Gilchrist, who is in a studio in Irvine, California, says he had legal counsel to stop talking. Jim Gilchrist, the founder of the Minuteman Project and author of the book, Minutemen. Karina Garcia, your response.

KARINA GARCIA: He’s a coward. He is very tough when he has a shotgun and he’s in the middle of a desert intimidating defenseless immigrant families, but when it comes to being challenged by peaceful protesters and by people who understand this man and his organization for what they are, he runs away, and I think that was evident right now.

AMY GOODMAN: What was your comment about the National Alliance?

KARINA GARCIA: It’s very — it’s a known fact, this group recruits people from the National Alliance, one of the biggest neo-Nazi organizations in this country.

This is an undisputed fact. Now, the fact that this organization is trying to clean up its image now and the fact that Jim Gilchrist has taken off his Klan hood and put on a suit doesn’t mean that he isn’t what he is and that his organization isn’t what they are.

David Duke took off his hood, too. He tried to run for governor of Louisiana, and he put on a suit, and does that change the person that he is, what it represents?

Not one bit.

What he represents in the Mexican community is the same thing — what the Minutemen represent in the Mexican community is the same thing that David Duke and the Ku Klux Klan represent for the African American community.

AMY GOODMAN: I’m sorry we couldn’t carry on a dialogue, a discussion with you and Jim Gilchrist, but it was the College Republicans at Columbia who invited Gilchrist there. Have you had a discussion with them?

KARINA GARCIA: No.

AMY GOODMAN: And what has been the response on campus of the protest?

KARINA GARCIA: It’s been mixed. We’ve gotten a lot of support from people, but after the terrible coverage that we got from FOX, from the right wing, who mobilized very quickly to turn this into a free speech issue, which it clearly was not. people are mixed up. They don’t understand exactly what happened.

And then, that’s why we held our press conference on Monday, to say exactly what happened. We didn’t attack that man. We didn’t attack him at all, and the video coverage shows just that.

AMY GOODMAN: Did the speech continue after you stood up with your signs that said, “No Human Being is Illegal”?

KARINA GARCIA: No, and that is not because this man felt physically threatened. This is because he was in the midst of a crowd of more than 150 people who were chanting when we got up on that stage and held our banner, and they were saying, “Si se puede! Si se puede!”

And he felt isolated, because the entire time the crowd was against them, because they saw what they are, they know what they’ve done.

And he terminated his own speech when he left, and that was not because he was threatened, like I said, but it was because he felt isolated and because he knew that he couldn’t win, because we knew exactly who he was, and so do the millions of undocumented immigrants in this country who didn’t have the ability to be in that room to call this man what he was.

AMY GOODMAN: Was there a difference between the English-language press coverage and Univision’s coverage?

KARINA GARCIA: Oh, my God. Wow!

There’s a world of difference between the two.

I mean, if you saw what they showed on Univision, it showed that we were attacked, and if you see what they showed on everything else, it was that this group of angry Mexicans just ran up on stage.

And really, all they show is just like the tugging of a banner, which really isn’t violent at all. I mean, there’s no — there’s nobody was attacking anybody in that situation, but they were quick to sell the narrative that we couldn’t control ourselves and that we attacked these people.

And if you think about what Mayor Bloomberg went onto say, all of a sudden he’s become the advocate of free speech and he’s trying to like jump on it and make himself the free speech advocate.

Now, if you think back two years ago when the Republican National Convention was in New York City, he wasn’t allowing people protest permits so that they can protect against the war and against the Republican National Convention. This is coming from the same man.

So I think that it’s important that we look at that and we remember who we’re talking about. The fact that they want to silence students — like they don’t — they’re not promoting free speech. What they want is a pristine environment where racists and fascists can promote their agenda and their propaganda without challenge. That’s what they’re asking for.

AMY GOODMAN: Why is this issue so important to you, Karina?

KARINA GARCIA: The issue of immigration? The issue of the Minutemen?

AMY GOODMAN: The issue of immigration, the issue of the Minuteman spokesperson coming to — and founder — coming to Columbia?

KARINA GARCIA: This isn’t an organization with ideas. These are people with guns.

These are people with rifles, people that stand on the border in the middle of the desert, and they declare open hunting season on defenseless immigrant families.

This isn’t a battle of ideas. Their immigration policy — and I can quote their members — is it should be it legal to shoot illegals, ‘just shoot them on sight, that’s my immigration policy.’

That’s their connections with the National Alliance, their connections with people like Barbara Coe who have said that Latinos and Central Americans, they’re a bunch of savages.

The fact of the matter is you can’t tell a documented person from an undocumented person. You can’t. They can’t. So many people have died, so many people have been tortured, so many people have been left to die in the desert because of this organization and because of the racism and the hatred that they promote and that they spread.

So when they came to our university, we were speaking to a larger crowd, not just the people in the audience who had already — who were already against them. We were speaking to the country, to other students and saying, “This organization is a racist organization.

They commit violent acts against innocent people. Wherever they go, they should be challenged.”

AMY GOODMAN: And your response to the Minuteman Project announcing they are seeking to strip Columbia University of federal funding for what they say are violations of their civil rights.

KARINA GARCIA: It goes to show what they are trying to do. They’re not advocating for free speech. They want to create an environment where they’re not challenged, where nobody stands up and speaks out against them. That’s what they want to do.

That’s why Michael Bloomberg went on television and said his speech about free speech, not because he is a proponent of free speech, because that was clear two years ago when he wasn’t allowing people to protest against the war.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, I want to thank you very much with joining us, Karina Garcia, political chair of the Chicano Caucus at Columbia University. She is a senior at Columbia. And I’m sorry Jim Gilchrist left in the midst of the program. It would have been an interesting dialogue. Thank you.

KARINA GARCIA: Thank you.

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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