In the Heart of the Night…
Layla Anwar, An Arab Woman Blues
…Yes indeed, Iraqi lives are so cheap and worthless and because you, and the majority of you, viewed them that way, you can easily continue in your indifference and carelessness…comparing and standing on your high “moral” grounds. Because you really believe you are such a moral people, don’t you? Add another injustice to the list. Or maybe this is the first injustice, the mother of all injustices and the mother of all crimes – Your perception of Iraqi lives as being so cheap and worthless – that has enabled you to continue slaughtering us for nearly 20 years now… And the physical elimination was not enough for you, you had to also turn us into living shadows, surviving skeletons sitting on street benches, or prisoners of our cold lodgings not daring to venture out…turn us into menial workers, beggars, or prostitutes in a ruthless black market, waiting for a savior… Do you realize the so many levels of crimes and injustices or are you still blind? Knowing you, you will remain blind… Since when do criminals admit to their crimes? (…) True Iraqis need to realize that they are very much alone…that their lives are considered worthless and cheap, and that they have to rely on no one but themselves and the rememberance and presence of the Absent One…

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Annapolis, as seen from Gaza
If history has taught the people of Gaza anything, it’s that they never have much of a say in their destiny
Laila El-Haddad
…”The Annapolis meeting will not bring anything new for the Palestinians; it is a repetition of many other conferences which sought to reinforce the principle of making concession on the Palestinian national rights,” says Yousef Diab, a 35-year-old government employee. For Fares Akram, a young Gaza-based journalist, the conference will result in little more than token concessions aimed at further isolating Hamas-run Gaza, and bolstering support for Abbas: “The Israeli government is weak in this time. President Abbas may get some support in the conference but the support will be for his struggle against Hamas. Gaza will remain forgotten and the improvements that may come out from the meeting will only apply to the West Bank while nothing will be done here in Gaza.” (…) Aliya Moor, a mother of eight, adds: “We’re already dead, the only thing we need is to be buried, to be pushed into the grave and buried. It’s already been dug up for us.” We are prisoners, others have told me, constantly waiting and helplessly hoping for decisions to be made that determine whether they live or die – both figuratively and literally. Except prisoners are guaranteed certain things, like food and water and access to medical care. Gazans are guaranteed none of these things. Instead, they are setting the bar as the first occupied people in history to be embargoed and declared hostile….

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Hey Rupert? What Happened To All Those Post-Saddam $20 Barrels Of Oil?
Oil Touches $100, But Will Go Beyond In 2008
Darryl Mason, YOUR NEW REALITY
No power king on the face of the planet did more to warp reality than Rupert Murdoch in helping to create the American mindset that backed the War On Iraq in early 2003. Using his massive media blitzkrieg marketplace control in the US, the UK and Australia (70% of all daily newspapers), Murdoch pumped the always extremely dodgy case(s) for War On Iraq with all the desperate enthusiasm of a Depression-era carnival huckster with two families to feed and a baseball bat wielding loan shark taking aim at his kneecaps. You must remember what Rupert had to say about how good the Iraq War would (could) be for the price of oil, right? In case you’ve forgotten, here’s Rupert Murodch, from February 12, 2003, as quoted in the Australian Financial Review : “The greatest thing to come out of this for the world economy, if you could put it that way, would be US$20 a barrel for oil. That’s bigger than any tax cut in any country.”

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Iraqi Resistance Report for events of Thursday, 22 November 2007
Translated and/or compiled by Muhammad Abu Nasr, member, editorial board, the Free Arab Voice. www.freearabvoice.org
In a dispatch posted at 3:56pm Makkah time Thursday afternoon, Mafkarat al-Islam reported that Zionist sources had disclosed that the US government had asked “Israel” to study the possibility of pumping Iraqi oil to the refineries in the city of Hayfa in occupied Palestine. Mafkarat al-Islam reported the sources as saying that the proposal is being advanced as one possible way that the US could repay the Zionist entity for its undying support for the American occupation of Iraq. An official in the US Defense Department sent a message about this option to a high-ranking official in the Zionist “Foreign Ministry,” saying that pipelines would carry the Iraqi oil from Kirkuk – where about 40 percent of Iraqi oil comes from – via al-Mawsil and Jordan to Zionist occupied Palestine. The American letter reportedly called on the Zionist side to prepare a study of the costs of refurbishing and maintaining the oil pipeline between al-Mawsil and Hayfa – a pipeline shut down after the creation of the Zionist colonial settler state of “Israel” on Palestinian soil in 1948….

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Weekly Report: On Israeli Human Rights Violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territory No. 46/2007 ( 15 – 21 Nov. 2007 )
Palestinian Centre for Human Rights
Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) Continue Systematic Attacks on Palestinian Civilians and Property in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT)
* 6 Palestinians were killed by IOF in the Gaza Strip.
* IOF attempted to extra-judicially execute 2 Palestinians in the southern Gaza Strip, but the attempt failed.
* 22 Palestinians, including 7 children, and a Japanese human rights defender were wounded by IOF in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
* IOF conducted 35 incursions into Palestinian communities in the West Bank and one into the Gaza Strip.
* IOF arrested 51 Palestinian civilians, including a girl, in the West Bank.
* IOF have continued to impose a total siege on the OPT.
* IOF have isolated the Gaza Strip from the outside world and a humanitarian crisis has emerged.
* 2 patients died due to the denial of their access to medical treatment outside the Gaza Strip…

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20,000 vets’ brain injuries not listed in Pentagon tally
Gregg Zoroya, USA TODAY
At least 20,000 U.S. troops who were not classified as wounded during combat in Iraq and Afghanistan have been found with signs of brain injuries, according to military and veterans records compiled by USA TODAY. The data, provided by the Army, Navy and Department of Veterans Affairs, show that about five times as many troops sustained brain trauma as the 4,471 officially listed by the Pentagon through Sept. 30. These cases also are not reflected in the Pentagon’s official tally of wounded, which stands at 30,327….

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Bush’s Plame-gate Cover-up
Robert Parry, consortiumnews.com
In early fall 2003, George W. Bush joined in what appears to have been a criminal cover-up to conceal the role of his White House in exposing the classified identity of covert CIA officer Valerie Plame Wilson. That is the logical conclusion one would draw from a new statement by then-White House press secretary Scott McClellan when it is put into a mosaic with previously known evidence…

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Nation at stake
Kirkuk tops the agenda in Iraq as political forces vie for and against de facto national partition
Nermeen Al-Mufti, Al-Ahram Weekly
…Kirkuk is once again a matter of heated public debate. Turhan Ketene, political adviser of the Turkomen National Movement, told Al-Ahram Weekly that, “the formation of the so-called region of Kurdistan was done without holding a referendum. No Iraqi official asked himself why Mosul, which is within parallel 36, and should have been part of the safe haven area, was excluded from that area while northern Kurdish areas that were outside that parallel were included in the safe haven area. The aim, obviously, was to form a Kurdish region and divide the country. The Kurds always wanted Kirkuk. Barzani’s father once said that Kirkuk must be included in Kurdish areas, even if it only had one Kurd living in it.” Last week’s parliamentary session featured a fierce debate over Kirkuk. Osama Al-Nojeifi, deputy for the Iraqi List of Iyad Allawi, said that the committee the government formed to normalise the situation in Kirkuk was actually trying to change the identity of the city. The committee, he said, ignored evidence that hundreds of thousands of Kurds, people who were not originally from Kirkuk, were moved into the city…

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An unwinnable war
Robert Fox, Guardian
There is something seriously dysfunctional about international thinking on Afghanistan now. It is six years now that many countries have had their forces in Afghanistan, including the UK, the US, Germany and Italy. It is six years since the Taliban and their al-Qaida allies were turfed out of Kabul.Six years is a long time in war, longer than either of the two world wars, and respectively four times and twice the duration of US military operational commitment, respectively, to the first and second world wars. Six years on and there is a real danger that the Taliban could retake Kabul, and large parts of Afghanistan caught in all-out civil war, with reach well beyond the country’s fragile borders to the Asian republics to the north, Pakistan to the south, and Iran to the west….

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* * * NOT SATIRE * * *
Rightist manifesto: Settler evacuation is ‘crime against humanity’
Nadav Shragai, Haaretz Correspondent
About 150 right-wing activists, including academics and Israel Defense Forces reserves officers, have signed a manifesto to be published Friday calling on security forces to refuse evacuating West Bank settlers on the grounds that it is a “crime against humanity.” The declaration comes a week before the U.S.-sponsored peace conference in Annapolis, Maryland. Rightists fear that the conference will bring upon a mass evacuation of settlements, which they say will strike a blow to the legitimacy of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s government…

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IOF troops carry out maneuvers to reoccupy WB cities and towns
Palestinian Information Center
Israeli sources stated that the IOF troops have been carrying out military maneuvers for days on how to storm towns and cities in the West Bank towns in case the PA security apparatuses lost control over them. Two senior military commanders, namely, Gabi Ashkenazi and Amos Yadlin had alleged that in the event the Israeli military and intelligence activities diminished in the West Bank, Hamas would take control over it as happened in Gaza. Israeli security and intelligence apparatuses confirmed that these maneuvers are taking place because they believe that Hamas could be able again to rout Fatah in the West Bank…

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IRAQ: ‘Al-Qaeda’ attacks leave 34 dead
AFP
At least 34 people were killed in gun battles when suspected al-Qaeda fighters, some dressed as Iraqi soldiers, attacked three villages yesterday, officials said. Three soldiers and ten civilians were killed after gunmen attacked the headquarters of an Awakening Council in Hawr Rajab, a Sunni village south of Baghdad. In a similar incident, 11 people were killed after al-Qaeda fighters attacked Al-Kulaiyah, a village 25km (15 miles) north of Baquba. A few hours after that attack al-Qaeda fighters attacked the nearby village of Qobat, but the villagers defended themselves and ten al-Qaeda fighters were killed….

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Karzai Cozies Up To Taliban
The Mound of Sound
With the Taliban insurgents said to be spreading throughout the Afghanistan countryside, Afghan President Hamid Karzai says he’s in almost daily contact with the insurgents. “Only this week I’ve had more than five or six major contacts, approaches, by the leadership of the Taliban trying to find out if they can come back to Afghanistan,” Karzai told reporters. Of course it’s not clear why the Taliban would be reaching out to Karzai for permission to “come back to Afghanistan.” According to the Senlis Council the Taliban have already come back to Afghanistan in a big way and are closing in on Kabul….

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Iran’s expanding influence
Ibrahim Nawar, Al-Ahram Weekly
…In its modern history Iran has never had such an influential role in the Middle East as now. The late Iranian shah’s dream of making Iran a regional superpower collapsed with the fall of Baghdad Pact in 1958. With the rise of Iran’s religious leaders and their victory in Tehran in 1979, the dream was revived, allied with the temptation of mobilising Shia communities in Arab countries. Since the fall of Saddam and the occupation of Iraq by the US in 2003, new political realities emerged. It is difficult to believe that it was by chance, not by choice, that Iran became the most powerful stakeholder in Iraq. The Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) — the umbrella organisation of Shia political groups — doesn’t hide its deep loyalty to Tehran. Iran, rather than Jordan, has become the main trading partner of Iraq. In 2006, it is estimated that Iranian exports to Iraq reached over $5 billion and are increasing, with the Iranian Bandar Khomeini port becoming the main export point to Iraq….

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Thursday: 66 Iraqis Killed, 36 Wounded
Margaret Griffis, Antiwar.com
Mortars rained on the Green Zone has American troops there were celebrating the Thanksgiving holiday. The British base in Basra also received a round of shelling. At least 66 Iraqis were killed or found dead and another 36 were wounded throughout Iraq. No Coalition deaths were reported. In Baghdad, the Green Zone was bombarded by mortar fire. Only ten wounded were officially reported; however, a Reuters witness reported seeing one dead person…

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Desolation Row: The Peace of the Grave in Fallujah
Chris Floyd , Empire Burlesque
In the land of peace and plenty that Iraq has miraculously become in the pages of the corporate media during the past few weeks, Fallujah is often touted as one of the great success stories of the just-about, almost-there, any-minute-now American victory (…) Thus, just days after Bush once again skulked into the Oval Officee under a murky electoral cloud, Fallujah was offered up on the altar of Mars as a mass human sacrifice to the gods for the Dear Leader’s victory. Even though the months of noisy build-up to the final attack allowed hundreds of insurgents to escape and ply their trade elsewhere (a cynic might suspect that was part of the plan), the city was turned into a free-fire zone, hit with chemical weapons, and essentially razed to the ground (…) Fallujah has become a vast open-air prison, accessible only through biometric scanning, patroled by the bristling military force that left it in ruins, with expressions of dissent tightly controlled and punished, its crippled economy at the mercy of exploiters, war profiteers and corrupt officials. The city is “calm” because it has been beaten into submission and kept under armed guard….

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IRAQ-SYRIA: Lack of money, visa problems prompting Iraqi refugees to return home
IRIN News
Lack of funds and the Syrian government’s refusal to renew their visas, more than the perception of improved security in Iraq, are prompting some Iraqi refugees in Syria to return to Iraq, according to personal refugee accounts and figures from the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR). The Iraqi government recently announced that 46,000 refugees returned to Iraq in October, mostly from Syria, while a Syrian immigration source said that between 1 October and 19 November 60,000 people had returned to Iraq. Some media reports and Iraqi government officials have suggested the refugees are returning because of improved security following the US military “surge” earlier this year. However, in a report released on 22 November, the UNHCR – which interviewed 110 Iraqis in Syria this week – found that only 14 percent of respondents said they were returning to Iraq because they believed the security situation had improved, as opposed to 70 percent who cited financial and visa reasons….

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Countdown to Taliban Control of Afghanistan
Summer Ludwig
14 months after releasing a report that Afghanistan was once again in danger of becoming a Taliban controlled state, the Senlis Council has released a new, damn scary report entitled, Stumbling Into Chaos: Afghanistan on the Brink. According to the report, 54% of Afghanistan is occupied by a permanent Taliban presence. You may remember that after the US led invasion in 2001 the Taliban was pushed out of Afghanistan. Now they are back and with a strong hold on this nation. In fact, in much of the southern portion of Afghanistan the Taliban is the unofficial government and they are gaining more and more support. This chart shows just how much ground has been lost to the Taliban. Taliban leaders have often declared that they will retake Kabul in 2008, this now appears to be the case. Due to the turbulent history and regime change in Afghanistan the citizens are more open to leadership upheavals and the Taliban has been able to convert more and more to be supporters….

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U.S. Thanksgiving Day 2007
Felicity Arbuthnot, UN Observer
Today is Thanksgiving Day, in the United States, a time when family and friends get together to give thanks to the Creator for the Blessings bestowed upon them and to ask for Guidance, during the coming year. At least that is what it is supposed to be. It is also supposed to be a commemoration of a time when the First “Americans” welcomed refugees from Europe and taught them how to survive in a harsh and unfamiliar climate, a time when Respect for our common Humanity was Paramount. Sadly, the new refugees did not have these same values as those who welcomed them….

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Sheikh Hareth al-Dhari: Jerusalem is in Our Hearts
Association of Muslim Scholars in Iraq (AMSI)
…Jerusalem and Baghdad are forming double faces of one currency. We believe that Jerusalem and Baghdad are double faces of one currency that is the Arab nation and the Islamic nation. So the existence of Baghdad means Jerusalem and liberation of Jerusalem means liberation of Baghdad. What was happened in Baghdad is what was happened in Jerusalem. The source is one. Let anyone who suspect of this see who has occupied Palestine and Jerusalem. They are the Zionists, Americans and others who are assisting them with everything such as the payments, confirmations, supplying and providing the Zionists with weapons and know-how, and Iraq is occupied by the American and Israel…Yes American and Israel…

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The youngest Palestinian political detainee leaves the detention camp
Hadeel Wahdan – BBC – IMEMC New
They say life is just stories someone did not have the chance to tell yet. With this in mind, I tried to manage the boredom I felt while waiting in front of the Israeli detention camp of Telmond for the release of Aisha Eliyan, the youngest Palestinian political detainee to be released by the Israeli army this week. Aisha was born three years ago in Telmond Detention Camp. For three years she was unable to see the blue sky or play freely, her crime was that she was the daughter of a Palestinian women, Itaf Eliyan, who is detained for being a member of a political group that Israeli considers hostile. Um Waleed, the grandmother of Aisha sat waiting on a stone installed by the army in front of the main gate of the detention camp, Um Waleed is Aisha’s only remaining family member, since the army kidnapped her father several days before. Aisha’s father has never held her; he used to see her during a visit just once a week and he was unable to hold her…

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Iraqis need travel visa before entering Jordan
Azzaman
Iraqis will have to get a visa while in Iraq before heading for the Jordanian borders, the Jordanian ministry of interior said. In a statement, the ministry said the visas will only be valid for six months. Those overstaying their residence have to pay a fee for each extra day, it said. Jordan and Syria have imposed tough travel restrictions on Iraqis fleeing violence and ongoing military operations in their country….

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IRAQ: Oil minister may face fraud charges
Sabah Kamel, Azzaman
Oil Minister Husain al-Shahristani has failed to provide final accounts on Iraqi oil revenues to the parliament, the head of the parliament’s economic commission said. Ahmad Sulaiman said the minister still has to authenticate the 5% cuts in oil revenues allocated to pay damages resulting from former leader Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait. The fact the Shahristani has not provided the documentation may raise the possibility of charging him with fraud, Sulaiman said…

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IRAQ: Executions Not Leading to Reconciliation
Ali al-Fadhily*
The executions of former regime officials are creating greater division, rather than reconciliation, among Iraqis. Special courts formed by the American occupation authorities in Iraq are issuing death sentences — like that carried out on former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, on 30 December 2006 — on what many Iraqis are interpreting as a political basis (…) “Now they [U.S.-backed Iraqi Government] are executing the Ex-Minister of Defense, Sultan Hashim Ahmed, who was very well known for being a professional general who led the Iraqi army against Iran,” Al-Ubaidi said, stressing that, “This man represents a symbol for the Iraqi army that defended Iraq.” (…)Anger against the U.S. occupation for the sentences has also been aroused because of the promise for asylum the general was given before he surrendered to U.S. military forces. “They promised him asylum and that was why he surrendered to them in peace,” a relative of the general, speaking on condition of anonymity, told IPS. “They even asked him to take a post in the new system, but he refused, and maybe that is why they sold him to his enemies,” the relative said….

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Al Barghuthi: Israel succeeds in imposing facts through Annapolis
Rasheed Hilal, IMEMC
In a press conference held in the central West Bank city of Ramallah, Dr Mustafa al Barghuthi, secretary general of the Palestinian national initiative, pre emptively stated Israel as responsible for the failure of the Annapolis peace conference. He accused Ehud Olmert and the Israeli government of misleading of the world and western public opinion in a bid to gain time to pass its plans on the ground. Referring to the construction of a third of the Separation Wall in the Jordan Valley and the construction of a forth settlement enclave in the West Bank, Al Barghuthi said that “Israel continues with imposing the resolution of a state with temporary boundaries by going on with the construction of the Separation Wall and settlements.”…

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Demolition Decimating Palestinian Village
Ramsey Ben-Achour
Al Walajeh village was once a quiet but busy place. Just four kilometers from Bethlehem and 8.5 km from Jerusalem, its rolling hills filled with fruit trees, natural forests, and blooming vegetation made it a prime farming location. Easy access to large and consistent markets led its inhabitants to relative economic prosperity. Life was good. Today, however, Al Walajeh village is a different place altogether. “The demolishing of houses is a weekly event here in Al Walajeh, “ Sheerin Alaraj, Al Walajeh Village Council member, told IPS….

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Twenty missile shells land in Baghdad’’s Green-Zone
KUNA
The Iraqi capital witnessed a strong attack on Thursday with 20 missile shells landing in different parts of the heavyily fortified Green Zone area. KUNA’s correspondent said he heard at least 20 missile shells land in the area and smoke was seen there, along with the sound of sirens heard as a result of the attack.
The correspondent also added he could not locate the exact location of the firing attack, nor was he able to determine human casualties or material damage. US military choppers were seen flying over the area, which also coincided with another attack by Al-Qaeda on tribesmen resulting in killing eight men and three Iraqi soldiers, the correspondent added….

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“A matter of revenge”: Israel denying medical treatment to Gaza
Rami Almeghari writing from the Gaza Strip, occupied Palestine, Live from Palestine
“We had been waiting for an urgent referral to an outside hospital for the past six days, until he died today,” said Dr. Ismail Yassin Monday, in response to the death of one more patient at the Gaza Children’s Hospital. Tamer al-Yazji, a 12-year-old chicken pox patient, died on Monday on his hospital bed after his referral to an Israeli hospital had been delayed. Dr. Yassin explained that Tamer’s condition had gotten worse over the past few weeks, showing symptoms of blood problems in his brain, so the ill-equipped hospital requested his urgent referral for an MRI scan and follow-up, which meant accessing medical care facilities in Israel or Egypt. Working in less than ideal conditions with fuel supplies cut and medicine not entering the strip, Gaza Children’s Hospital is currently hospitalizing a number of patients, including many infants and 10 cases of cardiac disease patients….

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Only in Israel
Joharah Baker for MIFTAH
…Of dual Palestinian-American citizenship, fate had it that I would marry someone with Jerusalem residency. Almost a decade after our wedding, we are still trying to obtain family reunification that would effectively make me a Jerusalem resident and hence deem me “legal” in my own home. Until this gargantuan feat is conquered, I live, like approximately 40,000 other Palestinians “in the palm of a goblin”, that is, without ever having any real security or stability. Hence, my “illegal” status in Jerusalem means I cannot travel along with Jerusalem residents through Israel’s Ben Gurion International Airport in Tel Aviv. In this case, the Jerusalem residents in question are my husband and children. Yes, absurd as it may sound, my children are legally registered in Jerusalem (even though my name is filled in the slot allotted for mother’s name)….

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Pakistan nuke sites vulnerable to militant attacks: report
Hindu, India
A British think-tank specialising on Pakistan’s security issues has said that the chances of Islamabad’s nuclear assets falling into the hands of tribal militants have increased as most of the arsenals are located in the restive north-western parts of the country. The Pakistan Security Research Unit (PSRU) in its report, ‘The Security of Nuclear Weapons in Pakistan’, said Islamabad had in place robust measures but each contained some weaknesses and many were being exacerbated by the present political turbulence in the country. In his report, PSRU chief Professor Shaun Gregory, claimed that to assure the security of its nuclear weapons against an Indian threat, Pakistan established many of its nuclear weapons sites in the countrys northern and western parts. “But this had the unintended consequence of placing them close to areas which are presently dominated by Taliban and tribal militants groups,” the PSRU chief said in the report released here on Tuesday….

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Guantanamo detainees’ testament to the power of the human spirit
Jerry Mazza, Online Journal Associate Editor
This slender volume brings together 22 poems by 17 detainees, the collective voice of some 775 men held in the US detention at Guantanamo, Cuba. According to Department of Defense data, less than half are accused of committing any hostile act against the US or its allies. The very circumstances of the initial detainment of hundreds of these men are questionable, more like a national disgrace. Yet this volume exists due to the tireless efforts of brave pro bono attorneys who submitted each line for Pentagon scrutiny. Most of its authors are still at Guantanamo in legal limbo. If as Plato said in his dialogue Ion, “Poetry is nearer to vital truth than history,” then now we hear truth’s voice. Some of these verses were originally written in toothpaste, others scratched onto foam drinking cups with pebbles and hastily handed to attorneys. They are at once the highest and most basic form of art, i.e. communication, accessible to any reader….

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Exclusive Radio Play “Mein Little Kind Lenni’le”
Peacepalestine
Peacepalestine is proud to present a radio play based on REAL LIFE activism and INTERNET communication! It’s streamed in for a few days, so do enjoy. Here is a transcript that someone so graciously provided. I’ve even heard rumours that a filmmaker is going to put it into an animated version.. PePa will keep you posted….

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The new Turkish Republic
Roads to Iraq
Turkish newspaper “Gunes” published this map on its front page yesterday saying this is the new Turkish Republic. The areas included in this new “Turkish Republic” are: Greece, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Armenia, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Crete, some other large Mediterranean islands and the Aegean Sea. Notice that 9 Syrian provinces and 6 Iraqi provinces included. The title read: You ask about the map? This is the map…

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GI Special 5K17: The Pointless War [ November 21, 2007 ]
Thomas F. Barton
“They See It As Pointless Going Back Risking Their Lives To A War That’s Not Going To Make Any Effect On Them”
Fucking Idiots Out Of Control:
Soldier Hospitalized By V.A. For PTSD Arrested “In The Middle Of The Night” As AWOL:
“It’s Made Me Lose Respect For The Military”
“I Am Being Punished For Getting Help”

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GI Special 5K16: “ Got To Pull Out Of There Fast” [ November 20, 2007 ]
Thomas F. Barton
Today I met a soldier (National Guardsman) headed for Afghanistan in January. It’s a war he agreed with and said he was glad to go since he was single and replaced a family man. “It’s bad to have a family and be over there,” he said.
“But Iraq, that’s something else again. What is it, 3,700 or 3,800 guys we’ve lost? Hell, it’s turning into another Vietnam. Oh, not that many yet but it’s the same thing. Got to pull out of there fast. Don’t serve anybody or anything to be there.”
Find the troops and talk to them.
Some just enjoy being acknowledged, others have more to say.

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GI Special 5K15: “ Our Leadership Is Dishonorable” [ November 19, 2007 ]
Thomas F. Barton
Army Values
“I Am Loyal To My Fellow Soldiers; I Do Not Want Them To Die In A Purposeless War”
“I Am Loyal To The Constitution; A Constitution Which Is Under Attack By Men Who Have Not Sacrificed To Protect It”
“Our Leadership Is Currently Dishonorable”

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