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Annals of the New GI Resistance

by Michael Uhl
from the upcoming issue of the Veterans For Peace Newsletter

When a combat vet who witnessed war crimes in Iraq testified recently at the asylum hearing of a self-retired soldier ("deserter") who fled the U.S. army for Canada, the history of the Vietnam-era GI resistance seemed to come full circle.

In the late stages of the Vietnam War, following the public revelation of the My Lai massacre in the U.S. and world press, many returned veterans were radicalized and became active in the antiwar movement after giving public testimony about war crimes that they or their units had committed in Southeast Asia. Such revelations of Vietnam atrocities on a wide world stage had an impact on those still on active duty, no doubt contributing to the highest rates of desertion the modern U.S. military had ever experienced. The subsequent political cross- fertilization among active duty GIs, radicalized vets returned from Nam, and GIs in exile created a force of inestimable significance in bolstering the late mobilizations against that war. This potent movement, essentially working class in character, exercised an influence not yet fully understood to help escalate the erosion of public support for the Vietnam war throughout the communities of middle America.

And now, on December 7th past, we have our own Staff Sergeant Jimmy Massey (ret.), a 12-year veteran of the Marine Corps, and co- founder of Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) telling an asylum board in Toronto that his unit in Iraq "routinely shot wounded Iraqis and killed them." And that former Army private Jeremy Hinzman's decision to decamp Fort Bragg for Canada rather than go to Iraq is justified legally and morally by his refusal to participate in a war where such crimes, primarily against non-combatants, are both predictable and commonplace. Hinzmanís arguments of personal conscience can only be concretized by such testimony as that given by Jimmy Massey. And the hearing board cannot now fail to grasp what is at stake for many GIs who are misfortunate enough to find themselves in Iraq. If Hinzman is granted asylum, then the sense of deja vu between Vietnam and the current struggle will be transformed into one more visible sign that a the new GI Resistance is alive and growing.

posted 02 january 2005

We Will Reclaim Our Armed Forces!

Speech by Stan Goff at the December 11 Public Meeting and Speak Out in New York City

I want to thank the organizers for this very important defibrillation of the anti-war and anti-empire work that was put on hold by the recent elections. I want to thank my fellow speakers and presenters, and I want to thank everyone who is here for your tireless and stubborn refusal to confuse setbacks with defeats.

I tend to think of resistance politics these days as if they were a Charles Dickens novel. There is always a happy ending in the last chapter, but every chapter leading up to that ending… is sad.

I'm extremely honored to be here with Christian Parenti, whose book Lockdown America I consider canonical in many ways, and which should be required reading prior to entrance into any university. I quoted Mr. Parenti extensively in a long analytical piece I did in From The Wilderness that attempts to show how utterly connected the incarceration industry in the United States is with the entire system of late imperialism, and in particular why these most direct and brutal forms of social control - including prison rape and sexual humiliation, which are secretly sanctioned by the state - draw a straight line from a place like Pelican Bay maximum security to Abu Ghraib in Baghdad.

There is another book I want to recommend, while I'm at it, that is not about Kabul or Baghdad, but about Southern California. It is written by radical urban theorist Mike Davis, and it is entitled Ecology of Fear. In it, Davis describes, among many other things, how the development of high-end residential housing enclaves in the suburban foothills of LA spread into the habitats of mountain lions. Now, from time to time, explains Davis, a mountain lion - described as a rogue, of course - eats Fluffy the Cocker Spaniel, or encounters and attacks one of the yuppie joggers, demonstrating how the feline diet can be diversified to include spandex.

This is extremely interesting, because these encounters are referred to by the press and by members of these communities as… a mountain lion problem.

Obviously, the mountain lions are not getting equal time on the nightly news at these Young Republican settlements, or the mountain lions might explain that they were there first, and that from where they stand, there is a people problem.

But the mountain lions don't have equal time, and this phrase - mountain lion problem - this phrase and this concept stick, because it is repeated over and over again until it is incorporated effortlessly into casual conversation and folded into descriptive lists until it becomes a single signifier. There is no longer a problem between people and mountain lions. The mountain lions are the problem.

This is how the standpoint of selfish, clueless yuppies is enshrined as an axiomatic premise that is out of reach of any critique, because we simply breathe that premise like the air, and like the air, we take it for granted.

This is one reason we are important to the movement not just against the war, but the movement to overthrow a system that breeds war, why veterans and military families and dissident soldiers are so important in this crucial period. In this period when the old tricks no longer work, and the depredations of this global system have once again consumed the very bases of that system - its subordinated people and its wrecked environment - the essence of that system, its true essence, the gun and the bomb and the rape and the prison, are being unmasked by the necessity to use these colonizers' tools openly to preserve power.

George Bush didn't start this war. This war was waiting at the end of a road that we stepped onto decades ago, and by continuing to walk down that road we have inevitably encountered what is at its end. How many Iraqis did Bill Clinton kill? Why did we not want to hear during this last electoral folly that the anti-Bush candidate selected for us by Wall Street and the DLC did not promise to end the war, but to expand it?

The communities of the military are in a unique position - they have a special standpoint - to say we were there. We were not on CNN. We were not in the New York Times. We were there when you rained dioxin on us 35 years ago as you killed 3 million Southeast Asians, and we were there in our family hothouses when we carried the dioxin and the death back into our living rooms, into our relationships, in to our children who were the hostages of our pathologies. We weren't in the swimming pool communities in the LA foothills. We are the mountain lions, and now you have a veteran problem. Now you have a military family problem. Now you have an I'm-awake-and-I'm pissed-off-soldier problem.

Only we are not mountain lions, consigned by our own natural limitations to helplessly watch our own destruction by this system.

We were there! We are there! We have a special capacity and a special pedagogical responsibility to stop others from taking the air for granted, because that air is contaminated. It is poisoned by the criminality at the very genetic core of this whole system, that needs Agent Orange and Depleted Uranium to enforce its will on those it would dominate and those who refuse to surrender their own humanity to this criminality.

Who we call statesmen are often as not thieves. Who we call statesmen are often as not vandals. Who we call statesmen are often as not mass murderers, and who better to out them for what they are than those of us who have been held closest to their criminal hearts in their time of need.

Our demands have a special force, and so we have a special responsibility.

The movement demanded that we not invade Afghanistan to kill 4,000 civilians as vengeance for the 2,800 killed on September 11th. The movement demanded that we not invade Iraq - where our government had already overseen the destruction of over a million human beings, half of them not having reached the age of majority… and Iraq has never been any kind of threat to the United States.

Veterans for Peace and Military Families Speak Out held out in the face of feint-hearted anti-Bush resistance and never listened to the siren call of compromise and chauvinism that led many of our allies to tell us to drop the word NOW from our campaign to Bring Them Home NOW. We were clear about the system, and we knew that the vandal that destroys your home is not the right person to decide who will rebuild it.

We stuck to our demand, and time is proving us grimly correct. We were correct to demand that this criminal class cease and desist. Now the elections that put a mask of legitimacy on this system are past, and we have to reiterate that demand.

Now we all know that demands are the glue that holds movements together, whether or not the powerful meet them. One of our pedagogical tasks in the next period, I think, is to educate the public about the difference between a demand and an assertive request.

I already have my post-election bumper stickers to impeach. But I also know that these little provocations, like that bumper sticker, which is intended to be provocative, are useful mostly to further polarize our society - which I think is a good thing, because as long as we stay polite we never seem get to the point. A Congress of the criminal class is not going to impeach a fellow criminal, unless a scandal is so out of control that it threatens the whole structure.

One thing I agree with Christian Parenti on is that I oppose the criminal justice system as it is, but I think we will need prisons for a long time.

I say that because while my bumper sticker says impeach, what I really want to see - for these people who are presiding over yet another generation of our kids being sent abroad to do their criminal wet work - what I really want to see is George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Colin and Condoleeza I-forgot-who-I-am, Paul Wolfowitz, and cabinet members old and new… slammed up against a wall, searched as roughly as an Iraqi detainee, put in handcuffs, and their sorry asses thrown into a cell at Guantanamo Bay… after we give it back to Cuba.

Our job is not to be conciliatory. We are not diplomats. Our job is not to comfort the comfortable by reinforcing their denial. Our job is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. Because we were there. We know what these people have sent our children to do, and what they have sent our children to become.

And I'm not whining about that. I'm not going to cry about what was done to me, because the upside to it is that I'm grateful to the dominant class for my military career. I'm grateful for my education. I'm grateful to be a soldier… I'm just not their soldier any more.

On my 19th birthday, I left McCord Air Force Base to begin my international studies program in northern Bin Dinh Province. My professors were a Black buck sergeant named Eaves, a professional con-man named Westmorland, and the courageous and patriotic soldiers of the NLF and NVA who taught me what it looks like to say NO. I learned that a person can put one foot in front of the other for a long time. I learned that mosquito clouds and thirst and sleeping in the mud won't kill you. I learned to accept my own mortality. I learned that what most of suburban America thinks is extreme and exceptional hardship is the daily reality of most of the world… and I began the process of learning that the comfort of those suburbs comes at a price often paid by those we never see and whose hardship we cannot comprehend.

What the Bushes and the Rumsfelds have failed to understand about soldiers, old soldiers and new soldiers, and the families of soldiers who learn these things from and with us, is that when we learn that there are different experiences in the world, and when we learn to keep putting one foot in front of the other, and when we learn that we can survive extreme hardship, and when we learn to accept our own mortality, and when we learn to recognize con-men, and when and if we finally learn that everything they say is a lie, and every mission is vandalism and murder, then what is left behind is still a soldier, but he or she is not THEIR soldier any more.

Those troops are OUR armed forces, and we have to reclaim them no matter the cost.

Movements start with those who are not afraid, and they grow with those who are only a little afraid. The veteran just back from Iraq, and the veterans of past conflicts, who have snatched their humanity back from this system are not going to fall for every bullshit story. We are not going to fall for their appeals to criminality cloaked in patriotism. We are not going to be intimidated by their with-us-or-with-the-terrorists rhetoric.

I hope they are listening, and I expect they are.

George and Dick and Don, you are not going to shut up these veterans, and these families, and these soldiers by shaking your Patriot Act in our faces. Some of us worked pretty hard and risked everything to fight for lies. Don't you know that we will fight harder against you now that we know the truth?

Those troops are OUR armed forces, and we have to reclaim them no matter the cost.

Patriot Act! We are the ones who have the responsibility to teach the rest that the patriotism of someone defending their home is not the same as the patriotism deployed to take our children away from home. The patriotism of the invader is not the same as the patriotism of the invaded.

We can teach that, because we went then, and we are going to witness now.

Man, they hate witnesses, don't they? They hate witnesses the way all criminals do.

And I've got something to say to those soldiers and veterans who are not with us yet, but who are wandering in the wilderness of post-combat shock. Witnessing will heal you. PTSD is not the outcome of violence. PTSD is the recognition that you have been betrayed and that you were helpless when it happened, because you couldn't do any better or you didn't know any better. Do people know what the single most common cause of PTSD in the United States is?

Rape.

Rape victims report that confronting their attackers - and not just in court where the system tries to rape women again - but confronting one's attacker with a support group and outing that attacker are highly therapeutic. It is a way to recapture that lost agency from a former state of helplessness and standing back up in the world.

For combat veterans, we have a group right here for you, and we will stand beside you when you out the authors of the crime by describing what it really looked like. We know that some cling to denial, that some are broken in body and spirit, that some rage, and that some turn their anger in on themselves and crawl into a needle or a bottle or the chamber of a pistol. But there's a way out of that wilderness, and it's the path of the witness.

Imperialism has staked a claim on our children in uniform, and that's why we will never relinquish our claim on them. We will never surrender in the struggle for the souls of this and future generations. Never.

Those troops are OUR armed forces, and we have to reclaim them no matter the cost.

I'm a grandfather now. Those of you who are grandparents know what I mean when I say, Dick Cheney don't put yourself between me and my grandbaby and expect me to retreat.

We're not only not going anywhere, we are coming after all of them. The veterans of this war are already organizing against it. Troops in Iraq write to us. The whistleblowers are emerging from within the service. The MFSO family list is growing. The number of conscientious objectors is growing. The mutinies have already begun. We are going to court with stop-loss suits, and to defend military refugees in Canada. Soldiers in theater are setting up blogs that bypass the Centcom censors. There is a Camilo Mejia or a Mike Hoffman or a Kelly Dougherty in every squad waiting for us to invite them into the light.

George Bush, we are going to fight you for every last one of them.

Those troops are OUR armed forces, and we have to reclaim them no matter the cost.

To those troops who are not yet ready, we'll be there when you are. We don't go away. We put one foot in front of the other. We will never stop. When you decide that its time to see what's on the other side of all those taboos, its us you'll find there. Veterans and military families.

I made that Dantean journey you are on for two decades, separated from the very people who most wanted to confirm my humanity when I thought I had abandoned it along the road through eight conflict areas as a servant of this Ivy League mafia. But when I made the leap, they were there to catch me, and they catch me when I fall to this day. This movement is your family, and the door to that home will always be open.

If we're not home, look for us in the street.

That's where we're headed now. One foot in front of the other, until we get where we gotta go, because those troops are OUR armed forces, and we have to reclaim them no matter the cost. And those people in Iraq are not our enemies, and they have to reclaim their children no matter the cost, and we are reclaiming them from the same criminal clique.

Look for us in the street, and don't think we are making requests any more.

We are going to delegitimate this war and this system. And if that's not enough, we will disobey. And if disobedience is not enough, we will disrupt that system. We slept in the mud and did their dirty work, and we brought their wars back into our homes to be the burdens of our families. They made us soldiers, so that's how we are going to act. We are not afraid of poverty. We are not afraid of prison. We are not afraid of death. So now what are they gonna do? Without our fear, they have no power, and in movements, those who are not afraid will show those who are a little afraid the way.

We are not making a request. We are making a demand.

That demand is to let the Iraqis be the architects of their own future, and bring the troops home now. You want a compromise, turn on Judge Judy. You want a retreat, go book a cabana in Hawaii. You want a surrender, go visit Appomattox and read the plaques.

We ain't goin' nowhere.

posted 15 december 2004

It Is Surely Time For Us To Leave

Holiday In Fallujah

by hEkLe (hEkLe is, among other things, a contributor to the very useful in-country blog, <http://www.ftssoldier.blogspot.com>)

These are ugly times for the US military in Iraq. It seems everywhere you turn, more and more troops are being killed and maimed in vicious encounters with determined rebel fighters. The insurgency is mounting incredibly in such places as Baghdad, Mosul, and Baquba; using more advanced techniques and weaponry associated with a well-organized guerilla campaign. Even in the massively destroyed city of Falluja rebel forces are starting to reappear with a callous determination to win or die trying. Many critics and political pundits are starting to realize that this war is, in many aspects, un-winnable.

And why should anyone think that a complete victory is possible? Conventionally, our US forces win territory here or there, killing a plethora of civilians as well as insurgents with each new boundary conquered.

However, such as the recent case in Falluja, the rebel fighters have returned like a swarm of angry hornets attacking with a vicious frenzy.

I was in Falluja during the last two days of the final assault. My mission was much different from that of the brave and weary infantry and marines involved in the major fighting. I was on an escort mission, accompanied by a squad who's task it was to protect a high brass figure in the combat zone. This particularly arrogant officer went to the last battle in the same spirits of an impartial spectator checking out the fourth quarter of a high school football game.

Once we got to the Marine-occupied Camp Falluja and saw artillery being fired into town, the man suddenly became desperate to play an active role in the battle that would render Falluja to ashes. It was already rumored that all he really wanted was his trigger time, perhaps to prove that he is the toughest cowboy west of the Euphrates.

Guys like him are a dime a dozen in the army: a career soldier who spent the first twenty years of his service patrolling the Berlin Wall or guarding the DMZ between North and South Korea. This sort of brass may have been lucky to serve in the first Gulf War, but in all actuality spent very little time shooting rag-heads. For these trigger-happy tough guys, the last two decades of cold war hostilities built into a war frenzy of stark emptiness, fizzling out almost completely with the Clinton administration. But this is the New War, a never-ending, action-packed "Red Scare" in which the communist threat of yesteryear was simply replaced with the white-knuckled tension of today's "War on Terrorism".

The younger soldiers who grew up in relatively peaceful times interpret the mentality of the careerists as one of making up for lost opportunities. To the elder generation of trigger pullers, this is the real deal; the chance to use all the cool toys and high speed training that has been stored away since the '70s for something tangibly useful.and it's about goddamn time.

However, upon reaching the front lines, a safety standard was in effect stating that the urban combat was extremely intense. The lightest armored vehicles allowed in sector were Bradley tanks. Taking a glance at our armored humvees, this commander insisted that our section would be fine. Even though the armored humvees are very stout and nearly impenetrable against small arm fire, they usually don't hold up well against rocket attacks and roadside bombs like a heavily armored tank will.

The reports from within the war zone indicated heavy rocket attacks, with an armed insurgent waiting on every corner for a soft target such as trucks. In the end, the overzealous officer was urged not to infiltrate into sector with only three trucks, for it would be a death wish during those dangerous twilight hours. It was suggested that in the morning, after the air strikes were complete, he could move in and "inspect the damage".

Even as the sun was setting over the hazy orange horizon, artillery was pounding away at the remaining twelve percent of the already devastated Falluja. Many units were pulled out for the evening in preparation of a full-scale air strike that was scheduled to last for up to twelve hours. Our squad was sitting on top of our parked humvees, manning the crew-served machine guns and scanning the urban landscape for enemy activity. This was supposed to be a secured forward operating area, right on the edge of the combat zone. However, with no barbed wire perimeter set up and only a few scattered tanks serving as protection, one was under the assumption that if someone missed a minor detail while on guard, some serious shit could go down.

One soldier informed me that only two nights prior an insurgent was caught sneaking around the bullet-ridden houses to our immediate west. He was armed with a rocket-propelled grenade, and was laying low on his advance towards the perimeter. One of the tanks spotted him through its night vision and hastily shot him into three pieces. Indeed, though it was safe enough to smoke a cigarette and relax, one had to remain diligently aware of his surroundings if he planned on making it through the night.

As the evening wore on and the artillery continued, a new gruesome roar filled the sky. The fighter jets were right on time and made their grand appearance with a series of massive air strikes. Between the pernicious bombs and fierce artillery, the sky seemed as though it were on fire for several minutes at a time. First you would see a blaze of light in the horizon, like lightning hitting a dynamite warehouse, and then hear the massive explosion that would turn your stomach, rattle your eyeballs, and compress itself deep within your lungs. Although these massive bombs were being dropped no further than five kilometers away, it felt like it was happening right in front of your face. At first, it was impossible not to flinch with each unexpected boom, but after scores of intense explosions, your senses became aware and complacent towards them.

At times the jets would scream menacingly low over the city and open fire with smaller missiles meant for extreme accuracy. This is what Top Gun, in all its glory and silver screen acclaim, seemed to be lacking in the movie's high budget sound effects. These air-deployed missiles make a banshee-like squeal, sort of like a bottle rocket fueled with plutonium, and then suddenly would become inaudible. Seconds later, the colossal explosion would rip the sky open and hammer devastatingly into the ground, sending flames and debris pummeling into the air. And as always, the artillery-some rounds were high explosive, some were illumination rounds, some were reported as being white phosphorus (the modern day napalm).

Occasionally, on the outskirts of the isolated impact area, you could hear tanks firing machine guns and blazing their cannons. It was amazing that anything could survive this deadly onslaught. Suddenly a transmission came over the radio approving the request for "bunker-busters". Apparently, there were a handful of insurgent compounds that were impenetrable by artillery. At the time, I was unaware when these bunker-busters were deployed, but I was told later that the incredibly massive explosions were a direct result of these "final solution" type missiles.

I continued to watch the final assault on Falluja throughout the night from atop my humvee. It was interesting to scan the vast skies above with night vision goggles. Circling continuously overhead throughout the battle was an array of attack helicopters.

The most devastating were the Cobras and Apaches with their chain gun missile launchers. Through the night vision I could see them hovering around the carnage, scanning the ground with an infrared spotlight that seemed to reach for miles. Once a target was identified, a rapid series of hollow blasts would echo through the skies, and from the ground came a "rat-a-tatting" of explosions, like a daisy chain of supercharged black cats during a Fourth of July barbeque. More artillery, more tanks, more machine gun fire, ominous death-dealing fighter planes terminating whole city blocks at a time.this wasn't a war, it was a massacre!

As I look back on the air strikes that lasted well into the next morning, I cannot help but to be both amazed by our modern technology and disgusted by its means. It occurred to me many times during the siege that while the Falluja resistance was boldly fighting us with archaic weapons from the Cold War, we were soaring far above their heads dropping Thor's fury with a destructive power and precision that may as well been nuclear. It was like the Iraqis were bringing a knife to a tank fight.

And yet, the resistance toiled on, many fighting until their deaths. What determination! Some soldiers call them stupid for even thinking they have a chance in hell to defeat the strongest military in the world, but I call them brave. It's not about fighting to win an immediate victory. And what is a conventional victory in a non-conventional war? It seems overwhelmingly obvious that this is no longer within the United States hands.

We reduced Falluja to rubble. We claimed victory and told the world we held Falluja under total and complete control. Our military claimed very little civilian casualties and listed thousands of insurgents dead. CNN and Fox News harped and cheered on the television that the Battle of Falluja would go down in history as a complete success, and a testament to the United States' supremacy on the modern battlefield.

However, after the dust settled and generals sat in cozy offices smoking their victory cigars, the front lines in Falluja exploded again with indomitable mortar, rocket, and small arm attacks on US and coalition forces.

Recent reports indicate that many insurgents have resurfaced in the devastated city of Falluja. We had already claimed the situation under control, and were starting to turn our attention to the other problem city of Mosul. Suddenly we were backtracking our attention to Falluja. Did the Department of Defense and the national press lie to the public and claim another preemptive victory? Not necessarily so. Conventionally we won the battle, how could anyone argue that? We destroyed an entire city and killed thousands of its occupants. But the main issue that both the military and public forget to analyze is that this war, beyond any shadow of a doubt, is completely guerrilla.

Sometimes I wonder if the West Point graduated officers have ever studied the intricate simplicity and effectiveness of guerrilla warfare. During the course of this war, I have occasionally asked a random lieutenant or a captain if he at any time has even browsed through Che Guevara's Guerrilla Warfare. Almost half of them admit that they have not. This I find to be amazing! Here we have many years of guerrilla warfare ahead of us and our military's leadership seems dangerously unaware of what it all means!

Anyone can tell you that a guerrilla fighter is one who uses hit and run techniques to attempt a breakdown of a stronger conventional force. However, what is more important to a guerrilla campaign are the political forces that drive it. Throughout history, many guerrilla armies have been successful; our own country and its fight for independence cannot be excluded.

We should have learned a lesson in guerrilla fighting with the Vietnam War only thirty years ago, but history has a funny way of repeating itself. The Vietnam War was a perfect example of how quick, deadly assaults on conventional troops over a long period of time can lead to an unpopular public view of the war, thus ending it.

Che Guevara stressed in his book Guerrilla Warfare that the most important factor in a guerrilla campaign is popular support. With that, victory is almost completely assured. The Iraqis already have many of the main ingredients of a successful insurrection. Not only do they have a seemingly endless supply of munitions and weapons, they have the advantage to blend into their environment, whether that environment is a crowded market place or a thickly vegetated palm grove. The Iraqi insurgent has utilized these advantages to the fullest, but his most important and relevant advantage is the popular support from his own countrymen.

What our military and government needs to realize is that every mistake we make is an advantage to the Iraqi insurrection. Every time an innocent man, woman or child is murdered in a military act, deliberate or not, the insurgent grows stronger. Even if an innocent civilian is slain at the hands of his/her own freedom fighter, that fighter is still viewed as a warrior of the people, while the occupying force will ultimately be blamed as the responsible perpetrator.

Everything about this war is political.every ambush, every bombing, every death. When a coalition worker or soldier is abducted and executed, this only adds encouragement and justice to the dissident fervor of the Iraq public, while angering and demoralizing the occupier. Our own media will prove to be our downfall as well. Every time an atrocity is revealed through our news outlets, our grasp on this once secular nation slips away. As America grows increasingly disturbed by the images of carnage and violent death of her own sons in arms, its government loses the justification to continue the bloody debacle. Since all these traits are the conventional power's unavoidable mistakes, the guerrilla campaign will surely succeed. In Iraq's case, complete destruction of the United States military is impossible, but through perseverance the insurgency will drive us out. This will prove to be the inevitable outcome of the war.

We lost many soldiers in the final battle for Falluja, and many more were seriously wounded. It seems unfair that even after the devastation we wreaked on this city just to contain it, many more troops will die in vain to keep it that way. I saw the look in the eyes of a reconnaissance scout while I talked to him after the battle.

His stories of gore and violent death were unnerving. The sacrifices that he and his whole platoon had made were infinite. They fought everyday with little or no sleep, very few breaks, and no hot meals. For obvious reasons, they never could manage to find time to email their mothers to let them know that everything turned out ok. Some of the members of his platoon will never get the chance to reassure their mothers, because now those soldiers are dead. The look in his eyes as he told some of the stories were deep and weary, even perturbed.

He described in accurate detail how some enemy combatants were blown to pieces by army issued bazookas, some had their heads shot off by a 50 caliber bullet, others were run over by tanks as they stood defiantly in the narrow streets firing an AK-47. The soldier told me how one of his favorite sergeants died right in front of him. He was taking cover behind an alley wall and as he emerged to fire his M4 rifle, he was shot through the abdomen with a rocket-propelled grenade. The grenade itself exploded and sent shrapnel into the narrator's leg. He showed me where a chunk of burned flesh was torn from his left thigh.

He ended his conversation saying that he was just a dumb kid from California who never thought joining the army would send him straight to hell. He told me he was tired as fuck and wanted a shower. Then he slowly walked away, cradling a rifle under his arm.

posted 20 november 2004

It Is Surely Time For Us To Leave

By Michael T. McPhearson
May 28, 2004

I wrote this nearly six months ago and we have more of the same, death. Our soldiers are dying. They are killing Iraqi civilians. More Iraqis are becoming insurgents who kill more soldiers and other civilians. How many more must die before the nations understands?

March 2003, days before our invasion of Iraq, I woke up from a disturbing dream where it appeared that I was watching a newscast of Palestinians clashing with Israeli Defense Forces that some how transformed to pictures of Iraqis clashing with U.S. forces. Today it is our reality. I wondered then, if I where confronted by these images how would I feel as an Arab living in the Middle East? What would I think? And most important, what would I do? I knew then as I clearly see now that I would be furious. I would think that the U.S. was unfair and sided with Israel. What would I do? Be assured resistance is without question, but how? Would I be a violent resistance fighter or a non-violent activist? It would be easy for me to say sitting here in the U.S. that I would use non-violent tactics to resist, but when one is surrounded by violence and if a loved one has been killed or seriously injured by your oppressor, well I don't know if I have the courage and discipline to follow the road less traveled, the road of non-violence.

While I never pretend to have all the answers or a complete analysis of any situation, here are my thoughts on the resistance in Iraq and the continuing rise in violence.

Who are the insurgence or resistance fighters? I think it depends. I think the bulk of the initial resistance was spurred and organized by former Ba'thist Party members, al Qaeda sympathizers and or operatives and other what I call Islamic Fascist who simply hate the West and particularly the U.S. I say bulk of the resistance because a smaller number were probably indigenous Iraqis who do not want the U.S. to occupy their country. The reasons I think most of the initial resistance were people other than regular citizens is simple. A majority of the people I spoke to during my trip to Iraq in December 2003 were happy that Saddam was gone. They made it clear to me that they hated Saddam and saw him as a monster. He made their lives hell. Many of them asked me to thank Americans for liberating the Iraqi people from Saddam.

This is not to say they where happy with the occupation. They were very upset about their conditions and treatment. But they were willing to give us, the U.S. a chance. A vivid illustration of this is a family we visited in Sadr City. We spoke to the father and son of the family. Both were angry about the occupation. Their anger was heightened by the death of Mohammed, the family's eldest son, who was killed by U.S. soldiers. They thought he had been assassinated. The anger was thick in the air. Both explained that unless there was an apology and the killers brought to justice, revenge would be taken against the coalition. Hani, the younger son, made it clear to us that this was not a threat, it was a promise. When asked how he felt about the invasion he said, "Let me tell you these things about the beginning of this war. At the beginning of this war to be honest with you, every Iraqi people, we have some hope that things would be changed better. Better things. But even before this accident. I mean the accident with my brother. Even this all begin to disappear. Because we see, we saw the situation. It changed to more bad. Very bad even than before."

He went on to say, when asked if he wanted the troops to leave, "The Americans shouldn't leave and leave the situation like this unstable. They should leave after stability. There should be stability here. Because they make this situation like this, so they should give us the solutions about the problems they did."

I heard from many Iraqis who had similar feelings that the occupation was intolerable, but they wanted the U.S. to ensure security and fix everything we broke before we left. Others wanted us to leave immediately. It was a mixed bag. I got the feeling that most Iraqis where willing to give us a chance at getting things right. Under Saddam, the Iraqi people had no hope and now they do. But, they did no trust us. Once again Hani's words say it best. "Before, anyone who has a big position in the Iraqi Army could kill you. So at the beginning of the war, we have hope that the situation would be better. And we accepted... OK let America take whatever from our fortune and give us what we deserve. It's ok. Let's share in this. But even these things did not happen. The sharing the fortune did not happen. So I do not know the solutions. I ask, and ask and ask."

Unfortunately we were not getting things right. Electricity and gas were in short supply, unemployment was high, and people did not feel safe. But these problems were nothing compared to the treatment of the Iraqis by U.S. soldiers. We witnessed story after story of mistakes, abuses and accidents that caused humiliation, serious injuries and death. Electricity, safety and employment problems are forgotten once provided. Abuse, injuries and deaths are never forgotten and many times never forgiven.

So while we were trying to help the Iraqi people our methods have and continue to create enemies. I believe we are seeing the consequences of those mistakes today. I wrote upon my return from Iraq that: "...in my eyes the bad outweighs the good. Due to the administration's poor planning and disrespect for the opinions of the Iraqis, far too many U.S. troops and Iraqis are being injured (both physically and psychologically) and dying. If President Bush thinks he is winning the peace, he is mistaken. I say again, soldiers are not police. They are trained to use overwhelming force; the kind of force used against opposing armies, not civilian populations. Our leadership has put our soldiers in a no-win situation. The current state of affairs has created new resistance fighters and the cycle of violence and suffering begins anew."

So who is the resistance today? Of course we have al Qaeda and their sympathizers as well as Ba'athists and others who gained from Saddam's rule, but a growing number are everyday Iraq's. They are people grateful to see Saddam gone, overjoyed with Saddam's overthrow but frustrated and angered by U.S. occupation.

This anger has been enflamed by the Abu Ghraib pictures depicting abuse and torture of Iraqis by U.S. soldiers. The torture is not news to the Iraqis. While in Iraq we visited the prison. We where denied access to the facility, but we stood outside its gates and talked to many Iraqis. They told us about family members taken from their homes by U.S. soldiers without explanation or information about the person's whereabouts. People were arrested for simply being a family member of a suspect or knowing someone wanted for questioning. We met a number of women who visited the prison everyday trying to find their loved ones. Many people were not sure if their loved one was in the prison. Others were informed by released detainees who upon returning home informed families. Iraqis described mild torture such as making people dance or stand for prolonged lengths of time to severe abuse such as electric shock. This behavior was reported from more than Abu Ghraib. Our returning report outlined these stories and recommended investigations.

President Bush's appearance on Middle Eastern news media stating that the torture is isolated does not ring true to me and I doubt rings true to Iraqis. They were telling us these stories in December 2003. The U.S. did not acknowledge the abuses until much later. The pictures only confirmed what the Iraqis already knew. Bush's appearance serves to verify that the U.S. cannot be trusted. Why try to tell Iraqis about something that is happening in their country and to their families? They know the truth no matter what the administration says.

I believe the extreme abuse depicted in the pictures is not the norm, but mild abuse, constant accidents, and collateral damage that injures maims and kills civilians appear to be common occurrences, especially lately with the escalation of violence as U.S. soldiers try to find insurgents. The problem is that more and more regular citizens are resisting. Violent resistance is spreading. The more people we detain or kill the more animosity leading to more resistance. If there was a time when the U.S. could win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people that time has surely passed. I agree our country has an obligation and responsibility to help rebuild Iraq. We should provide money, resources, expertise and when appropriate people power. I also do not want to see Islamic fascists gain control of the country. But I really do not think they can. People who follow the Shi'a belief of Islam make up about 60% of the Iraqi population. The Grand Ayatollah Sistani is the most powerful and influential Shi'a leader in Iraq. As of yet he has not turned completely against the U.S. He is certainly not aligned with former Ba'thist or al Qaeda sympathizers. Most experts on the region consider him a moderate. It is believed that he may want to have a theocracy of sorts, but one that is not as conservative as the Iranian model but not as liberal as the Turkish model (which is more a democracy than a theocracy). If the Iraqis choose a theocracy, so be it. It will be the road they chose to travel. It will be the beginning of a movement towards greater freedom. Please do not confuse the fascist mentality of the Taliban with a theocracy like that in Iran. While the Iranian human rights record is horrendous and for that matter so is ours, the leadership and more importantly the people of Iran are a hundred fold more progressive than the Taliban. Remember our country began as an extremely flawed democracy and continues to be less than a perfect Union.

We must also remember that Iraqis are willing to spill blood for their future. Such is the case today. While it appears they are reluctant to fight on the side of the U.S. against other Iraqis, it is clear that Iraqis who want to see a future without U.S. occupation are able and willing to fight U.S. troops. I believe they will also fight outside influences if need be once we get out of the way. But in the final analysis the decision as to whether or not Iraq should be a theocracy, monarchy or democracy should be left up to the Iraqi people. The U.S. should leave immediately and let the Iraqis deal with each other. The longer we stay the more violence ensues. Yes if we leave there is a possibility of civil war, but our being there ensures civil war. Our presence creates the "us against them" mentality, Iraqis on our side fighting Iraqi insurgents. Our presence also legitimizes the use of violence as we us violence to maintain our occupation. When violence becomes the norm and the tool to create order it is very difficult to stop its use. The answer is clear. Bring Them Home Now!

posted 18 november 2004

On Veterans Day:
The Lessons Of The 343rd Quartermaster Company

By Lou Plummer

In the daily stories reaching us from the war zone in Iraq, we seldom hear much about the men and women actually serving in that continuingly troubled country. If a local soldier is killed or wounded, perhaps our local paper will attach a name and rank to its report. Still, there are a limited number of ways to die in this war, and our minds quickly numb as we learn of yet another young person killed by a roadside bomb or sniper fire.

Recently, for the second time since the U.S. invaded Iraq, we heard much about a group of soldiers serving there. These real people, mostly from the South, some teenagers, others with twenty-plus years of military service, are in a unit based in Rock Hill, SC. We heard about them because they refused an order in a combat zone.

When the photos from Abu Ghraib prison surfaced earlier this year, defenders of U.S. policy in Iraq were quick to point out that the soldiers shown were not ordered to commit the acts depicted. Even if they were ordered to soften up prisoners, however, those soldiers were entitled to refuse to obey such orders, since, obviously committing atrocities is against the Geneva convention. The problems at that hellish prison were the fault of poorly trained reservists. That was the story we got from generals and Donald Rumsfeld. The bad apples who made bad decisions would be punished we were promised.

On my daily commute through Ft. Bragg, NC, I saw the crowd of TV trucks covering the recent public hearings for Private Lindy England. We can all watch her being held to account for her bad decisions. Her court martial convenes in January.

Someone in the chain of command of the 343rd Quartermaster Company recently made some bad decisions as well. Someone decided to ask a platoon of reservists, citizen soldiers, to deliver a load of contaminated helicopter fuel to an aviation unit in an area full of insurgents. A unit flying from a base in a safer area had already rejected this load of fuel.

Someone made a decision to compel the drivers to operate trucks that the Army?s own records and standards judged to be not safely operable under any conditions. Deadlined is the term the military uses to describe such vehicles.

Someone decided that providing armor for cargo transporters in a hostile zone wasn?t a priority, 18 months into a mission that seemingly has no end.

Someone even decided that it was OK to send the 343rd Quartermaster alone into a dangerously hostile area without the accompanying firepower and air support that is customary on such missions.

Will anyone be punished for the decisions that created the circumstances that compelled a group of soldiers, all of whom volunteered for military service, to refuse a lawful order? Will anyone be punished for allowing fuel to become contaminated or for deciding to enter the fuel into the supply chain? Will anyone be punished for failing to provide equipment that's both operable and protected as much as possible from attack?

Although military spokesmen promise to conduct an investigation into the allegations made by the soldiers who refused the mission, they seem more concerned with stressing that this is an isolated incident. One can only assume that the rebellion is what is isolated, not the conditions that caused it.

Recently we learned that Lt. General Ricardo Sanchez wrote to the Pentagon to inform officials there that combat operations could not be sustained with the low rates of supplies he was receiving. This letter was written during the summer fighting in Iraq, when casualties were lower than they have been the past two months. Things are getting worse, not better in Iraq and the cracks are showing in the attitudes of the soldiers serving there.

posted 10 november 2004

A Post-Election, Pre-Combat Letter
From the Front:
Bring Us Home Now!

My Friends, Conspirators, and Souls,

Malcolm X's words, "You can't separate peace from freedom, because no one can be at peace until he has his freedom" from Malcolm X Speaks surfaces while I watch the lights of explosions rumble over the Iraqi city. Planes have been roaring overhead all night carrying out air strikes on hard targets that are possible hide-outs for insurgent freedom fighters. The artillery from a nearby forward operating base joins in with the noise and light display. The purpose is to soften the resistance before the ground troops move in. Hopefully many of the improvised explosive devices and anti-personal booby traps will be destroyed reducing American casualties. Because of the monsoon season close air support from helicopters and the spy drones have been grounded. That is where reconnaissance by snipers and scouts become vital for intelligence.

Being the first soldiers into a high-risk combat zone is not the most comfortable feeling. As the morning is just beginning and the first haze of light is glowing through the horizon's mist, I am filled with despair and fear. Not because of the job at hand that I know will be both challenging and dangerous, but because I have learned of the results of the 2004 United States Presidential Elections. I know that some of the soldiers that enter the urban mazes to hunt for the militants today will not be leaving with their lives. I know that many of the innocent men women and children that have not evacuated the city will also be murdered in the violence. And after this day it will not be over. The policies of the Bush regime will only escalate the war and promote more to come. Dubya's immature foreign diplomacy drives more countries away from aiding America in our efforts. The world polarizes and the United States is looking more and more alone on the far right edge. The economy will continue to suffer and as we stumble into another recession, we will find that our paid-off allies will back out once we can no longer pay the mercenaries' checks. The draft seems unavoidable if we continue Operation Iraqi Oppression. Every son and daughter from poor American families will be dying along side of me. The environment gags at the runaway pollution and whips up one natural disaster after another in it's defense. When droughts plague more and more of the world's crops, the entire stock of automatic weapons will not be able to stop hungry fathers from trying to feed their children. A global Somalia scenario will be commonplace. The human civil rights that Americans have been fighting for since the birth of our nation are being strangled under Patriot and Homeland Security Acts. It is 2004 but feels like we have stepped back in time to socially degenerate into a fictional reality of horror stories like 1984 and Animal Farm. The enlightenment of tomorrow's problem solvers is going dim. We won't leave a child behind in an education program that doesn't advance one single boy or girl.

The Fight or Flight panic of a beast pursued by a predator floods my nerves. Deep inside my heart I realize that Bush won by convincing America that he was a better choice than Kerry, and perhaps he is, but I seriously doubt it. I want to cry out FRAUD, and CHEATER! It is easier to believe that he stole the election rather than face the facts that America has bought every lie. Despite his low intelligence and macho feigned evangelism, he was the majority's choice. I think about staying in Europe when I redeploy to my home duty station in Germany, or possibly moving north to Canada. But I can not run either. The right thing to do is stay and put more effort into changing the system to something that is functional in a positive way. I have to organize into larger, more influential groups. It should not matter who is in office, the President is still required to represent the people. We have to push with great effort and convince Dubya to make the right decisions. We have to sway outside countries to help us as American people rather than back just our perceived government. The President is only a puppet and the people have to grab hold of the strings. With a true democracy it doesn't matter if Mickey Mouse is the Commander-In-Chief, which many of you voted for, the power should still rest with the citizens. Let's take that power back and have a government that reflects our country. It has been too long that we have been misrepresented by our leader.

The time Bush has been waiting for has come. He knew despite which direction the election went he would no longer be forced to worry about polls and swing states. He could concentrate on progressing to a new aggressive posture in Iraq. He is now free to launch the largest offensive since the war was declared over. He knows that the ballots are in and that he can not run again in 2008 or will be out of office soon enough. The media is conveniently distracted with possible scandals and lawsuits. They will be chasing the winner about digging up stories on the presidential race. No one will notice the increased level of conflict. So I, we, wait for the green light and then the Air Force will stop flying overhead, soldiers will begin moving from ruined house to ruined house and humvees will roll down the debris-strewn streets. There will be contact all throughout the sector as the insurgents refuse to swallow Capitalism to a force that looks more like an occupation every day. If you are reading this I have lived through another day in Iraq. But I might this could be the last time. I have stopped saying that it won't happen to me, because so many good people before me have said it. Superstition and prayer will not save us. Close quarters combat training or kevlar armor plates will not save us. The only thing that can help us now is to bring us home now. And the only way to do it is to force the government to recognize that that is America's choice. If it is the wrong decision, then that is our mistake to make. Not a few people we elected.

The responsibility of an American citizen does not end after your ballot is turned in.

Heretic
Baquba, Iraq

posted 05 november 2004

On 1000 Deaths

by Lou Plummer

(A shorter version of this article was distributed by the Progressive Media Project.)

The number of dead American troops passed the 1,000 mark the in the same way that number passed the milestones of 100 and 500, without pausing, without looking back, and most importantly of all, without stopping.

As a peace activist and a military veteran living outside of Ft. Bragg, NC, I'm able to see the effect these milestones have on a vulnerable community. They trigger a flood of letters from military wives angry as their husbands, veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, prepare for yet another deployment to the place that generates these milestones of the dead.

I get letters from young vets that say things like "I was stationed at Ft Bragg for about a year. I spent four months with [Operation Iraqi Freedom]Sif I had it all to do over again I would have signed the conscientious objector paperwork. My only other sibling, my brother, was already deployed over there."

When George Bush was avoiding service in Southeast Asia and, as it turns out, in the "champagne" unit of the Texas Air National Guard that his connections got him into, my father was somewhere in South Vietnam.

When George Bush was failing in business for the third or fourth time, I was a nineteen-year-old father of two attending National Guard drills on weekends and working during the week on a construction job for minimum wage and no benefits.

When George Bush was busy enacting tax cuts for people far out of my bracket in 2001, my teenage son was enlisting in the Navy, taking the gamble that in this, the richest country in the world, he wouldn't have to lose his life to get educational benefits and health care.

The men and women in the US military, stationed in over 120 countries but concentrated in Iraq and Afghanistan are not tools to be used by any president or any party to ensure political success and a stranglehold on power. These men and women serving in combat zones are our children, our spouses, and our fellow workers. They are human beings who are dying and being maimed while being asked to kill and maim in return for a cause based on coldly calculated political expediency, based on profits for an elite minority, and based on the selfish ambitions of a class of people whose children and spouses are very clearly not wearing uniforms.

No matter what the recruiters and TV commercials say, the military is not a jobs program. Unemployment is higher among veterans than among non-veterans. I learned to adjust artillery fire during my time in the service, not something for which there is much of a civilian demand. For the thousands of former GIs whose service left them physically scarred, productive employment may turn out to be as elusive as the enemy they pursued in the wars they fought. The Pentagon admits that at least one in five returning soldiers is facing the frightening prospect of post-traumatic stress disorder while others face only the relatively minor problems of anxiety and depression.

Nor is the military a way for many to go to college. The majority of those who pay into the current GI college fund end up getting no money from the government and often they don't even get their own money back. These twenty-something ex-service people have families to support and debts to pay that make pursuing a college education a remote dream.

It is not OK with me that they asked my father, that they asked me and that they are asking my child to possibly risk it all for a country that has new fighter jets and old schools, that has political conventions with budgets that are growing and public health care systems with budgets that are shrinking, that has free speech for politicians who seldom tell the whole truth and New York City jail cells for passionate young activists who confront those politicians. It is not OK with me that the military punishes those within its ranks who speak out against this war that so many in this country despise. We are told that those soldiers are fighting for our freedom while they are denied the basic rights many of us take for granted.

Primary among those rights is the right to die of old age, not as a result of improvised bombs in a country far from home.

1000 Victims and 2 Nations Destroyed For Mr. Bush

By Fernando Suarez de Solar
Father of Jesus Suarez de Solar, USMC Killed in Iraq March 27, 2003

When I returned from Iraq, I visited the burial site of my son Jesus. I said to him, "My son, many of your comrades have fallen in this war, more than 400 precious and vibrant young people like you. Tell me, my son, when will this end? How many more will have to die before the suffering stops? Give me a sign, my son." And I wept that day. As the months passed, the dying continued and more Brilliant youth and thousands of Iraqi children were lost.

On September 3, Mr. Bush accepted the nomination of the Republican Party for the presidency of this great and beautiful country. Among other things he said that the death of our troops hurt him deeply but that this is the price of our freedom, the price of our way of life, the price of living in a democracy. He said that millions of people are living better lives.

But I pose the question: to whom does Mr. Bush refer? More than a thousand of our children lost in Iraq, two thousand distraught parents, one thousand families destroyed. These families do not enjoy the way of life Mr. Bush talks about. We do not feel free nor have we received the least bit of gratitude from Mr. Bush beyond the medal ceremonies that serve as props for political campaigns. Alone in our homes, we have not heard one word from Mr. Bush or his administration.

As I write these words, another family is receiving the news that their child has been killed in combat. The numbers continue to rise. How much longer? How many lives, how many families, how many orphaned children will be traumatized before this immoral war based on lies comes to an end?

Today, my wife and my daughters asked me, "What is the meaning of all this dying? Will your struggle for peace have any effect? When will the American people and the politicians understand that Bush is destroying us?"

The answer will be given on November 2.

BODY COUNT—1,000
Where have all the soldiers gone?

By Stan Goff

These milestones come along, reminding us… and the wrath struggles to break free again. The anger is never really absent, just dormant like a sleeping volcano.

Back when the pack of professional liars in Washington DC and their slavish corporate press still had Americans brainwashed that Iraq was a threat to the United States, General Tommy Franks - then the chief military planner of the catastrophe in Iraq - said, "We don't do body counts."

He didn't want anyone to know what might be behind the numbers.

I could say the same thing now, as we arrive almost simultaneously at 1,000 US military fatalities in Iraq and the third anniversary of the attacks of September 11, 2001.

So I'm saying it. This is not a body count. This is not about the number of dead GIs. This is not about almost 7,000 wounded. It's not about 14,000 dead Iraqis, or any of the considerable inventory of macabre enumerations we might clinically extract from the orgy of cruelty that is now Iraq.

We won't do body counts. War is more than a number. This war is an expanding ocean of unanswered pain, and it cannot be reduced to a number.

One thousand times now, people have arrived home or looked out the front door only to see a military sedan, with two troops in their dress uniforms.

This was my nightmare while my own son was there. An army sedan.

When people see it, they know in that terrible instant that someone they pushed out of their own body, someone they saw take a first step and speak a first word, or with whom they made love, or the anchor in the stormy world that is a parent, someone called brother or sister or grandchild… that sedan with the survival officer and the chaplain signifies that this someone… has been erased and is no longer in the world with us, that something shocking has happened to the living body we once held close and will never hold again.

One thousand times now, as George W. Bush and his entourage smirked and plotted and slapped each other on the back, those left to live have been flayed with grief then set adrift in the void of their own loss to seek some trifling scrap of consolation. Why?

It's so the oxygen thieves who run the US Empire can chase after their grandiose delusions in drawing rooms, surrounded by an army of servants attending to their every whim, and so the class they represent can continue to accumulate money. That's why a thousand ripped up bodies have been shipped home - boxed and draped in bright new flags to sanitize the obscenity.

These pampered fucking sociopaths have no conception of the anguish of ordinary people, of how inconsolable is this loss.

When we reflect on the personal enormity and breathless depth of the sorrow of ordinary people that we know, then maybe we can begin to understand how that pain is mirrored in the ordinary Iraqi people who have been occupied - where their children have been bombed, homes destroyed, husbands and fathers and wives and mothers and best-friends and sons and daughters and grandchildren and neighbors and schoolmates killed and maimed, whole communities reduced to rubble, dignity daily kicked face first into the mud, humiliation their daily bread and fear their meat, the very soil transformed into a radioactive toxin that leaves women giving birth to pitiable monsters and people rotting in their own bodies from inexplicable malignancies.

This is what we can appreciate about others when we begin with the loss of those we think of as our own. This is what we can comprehend about who is the real enemy here; when we begin to really see the kind of personal devastation that is the price of this war. And a price paid for what?

The same Tommy Franks who didn't do body counts once, in his soldierly way, called Douglas Feith, one of the intellectual architects of this enterprise of grief, "one of the dumbest motherfuckers on the planet."

Yet Franks - ever the obedient servant - has now climbed up on a political cross to sop up the guilt for the "Mission Accomplished" fiasco organized by Karl Rove's reptile myth-makers. Franks now enthusiastically campaigns for the election of George W. Bush, a de facto chief executive whose cognitive capacities make Feith look like Robert Oppenheimer.

Franks is teaching us something right now far more significant than how to count or not to count corpses. He is teaching us with his example where our own culpability lies. Obedience.

It would seem that Pete Seeger's lyrics from the last great American antiwar movement still apply:

Where have all the soldiers gone, long time passing?
Where have all the soldiers gone, long time ago?
Where have all the soldiers gone?
Gone to graveyards, everyone.
Oh, when will they ever learn?

Oh, when will WE ever learn?

Stop Loss Blowing Up in Pentagon's Face!

Even as the Bush Administration moves to expand the Draft (let's call it what it is, even though the media won't, because it's aimed only at those who have volunteered for the Army, and have already served!), an angry rebellion is brewing in the ranks. It has been fueled by the Pentagon's recent announcement that over 5000 men and women from the Individual Ready Reserves will be called back into service. They are that desperate for troops to continue their unjust and unjustifiable occupation of Iraq.

On Tuesday, the Military Law Task Force announced that it was filing a class action suit against stop loss on behalf of "John Doe," a California-based reservist. The filing and accompanying press conference drew widespread attention from the press. Days later, the MLTF is still being flooded with media inquiries and troops wanting more information. The New York Times story below gives more details on the press conference. There is also a file (in MS Word format) containing the exact language of the lawsuit.

A Texas guardsman, Carl Webb, a seven year veteran due to leave the Army August 22, who is facing immediate deployment held a press conference to announce that he, too, is taking legal action to fight stop-loss.

And the lawsuits have helped spark a new set of articles in the mainstream media detailing the injustice of the stop-loss policy, the extreme hardships it places on troops and their families, and their mounting anger. The LI Newsday article included below the NY Times piece is one of the best and most detailed.

Dennis O'Neil

Soldier Sues Over Tour Made Longer

New York Times
August 18, 2004
By DEAN E. MURPHY

SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 17 - A member of the California Army National Guard filed suit in federal court here Tuesday challenging the Bush administration's so-called stop-loss policy, asserting that his pending deployment to Iraq "bears no relation to the threat of terrorism against the United States."

Under stop-loss, military personnel can be prevented from leaving the armed forces upon completing their enlistment terms. The plaintiff in this case, identified as John Doe to protect his privacy, is believed to be the first soldier to challenge the legality of the policy's application to deployment in Iraq.

The soldier is described in the suit as a sergeant from the San Francisco Bay Area who completed more than nine years of active service in the Army and the Marine Corps, including combat duty last year in Iraq. He then joined the California Army National Guard last December, the suit says, under a program that allows veterans to enlist for one year. On July 6, however, he was informed that his enlistment had been extended by two years and that his unit was mobilizing for duty in Iraq, the suit says.

"Doe's active-duty service kept him separated from his family for extended periods, and his service in Iraq has caused him to suffer post-traumatic stress syndrome," the suit states. "Doe's return to civilian life has allowed him to re-establish his family life and to attempt to recover from this combat trauma."

Since the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the Army has invoked stop-loss to extend the tours of more than 45,000 soldiers. Opponents have criticized the policy as a "back-door draft,'' while military officials say it allows them to keep units together for the sake of cohesion instead of incorporating transfers or recruits.

A spokesman for the California National Guard said the unit at issue in the suit was mobilized on Monday in Dublin, Calif., near San Francisco, and was expected to be deployed to Iraq after six months of training in Texas. (The plaintiff has been temporarily excused from the training, the suit says, because of his treatment for post-traumatic stress syndrome.)

The spokesman, Lt. Col. Doug Hart, declined to comment on the suit but did defend the stop-loss policy.

"The option is put into law so that the military can provide national security," Colonel Hart said. "This is something that Congress has approved, and it is a tool that the president and the military can use if they need to."

But the suit asserts that President Bush's executive order of Sept. 14, 2001, which authorized the deployment of Reserve and National Guard troops to active duty, was intended to prevent terrorist attacks on the United States resulting from a "continuing and immediate threat." The suit says the change of government in Iraq removed the threat there.

"Iraq no longer poses any threat of terrorism against the United States, if it ever did," the petition states. "In March of 2003, the United States led an invasion of Iraq that removed Saddam Hussein and his regime from power."

At a news conference in San Francisco, Marguerite Hiken, a leader of the fiercely antiwar National Lawyers Guild Military Law Task Force, said the stop-loss program was a major source of phone calls from unhappy and despondent soldiers to her organization's hot line.

"Are the number of calls increasing? Yes," Ms. Hiken said. "Are they more intense? Yes."

Michael S. Sorgen, a lawyer for the plaintiff, described him as "very loyal, patriotic and brave." But, Mr. Sorgen said, he wants to remain anonymous because "there might be some people who see this wrongly as an unpatriotic act." Carolyn Marshall contributed reporting for this article.

Stop-Loss, an Army about-face

By Arnold Abrams, Staff Writer
August 17, 2004

Luis Prosper has spent 24 years in the Army, reached the highest rank given to a non-commissioned officer — sergeant major — and was awarded a Bronze Star for heroism in Iraq.

Now he wants to leave.

"I think I've earned my retirement," said Prosper, 41, a member of Georgia-based 3rd Infantry Division, which returned from more than a year's combat in Iraq last August and recently was told it will be sent back. "But I can't get out."

That's because of "Stop-Loss," a Pentagon policy announced in June. The program, which applies only to the Army, prohibits soldiers from retiring or leaving the military three months before their unit is deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan. It also keeps them in place for three months after their unit's return.

Shortly after Stop-Loss was announced, Sen. John Kerry called the policy a "back-door draft," a charge the Democratic presidential nominee repeated last month in his acceptance speech at the party's national convention. Kerry's criticism was echoed by Sen. John McCain (R- Ariz.), who described the policy as "just another way of drafting people."

Stop-Loss could force thousands of soldiers to remain in uniform for a year or more after their contracts expire. As a result, many frustrated and angry people would have to put lives on hold. "This is a time bomb," said a Defense Department official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "And, like so much else the administration has done in connection with Iraq, it could produce some very bad results."

Like the predicament facing one Long Islander, who insisted on anonymity for fear of retribution from Army officials. After completing three years' active duty and returning to civilian life, this man, in his mid-20s, signed a one-year contract with the 69th Infantry Regiment — the "Fighting 69th" — a recently activated reserve unit in the New York National Guard.

Because his contract ended on June 4, two days after Stop-Loss was announced, the Long Islander had to remain with the unit, now training in Texas for deployment to Iraq in the fall. "It's unfair," said the soldier, a New York City policeman, who probably will not be allowed to leave the unit until late next year. "I did my job and fulfilled my duty. But the government has reneged on its contract."

Lt. Gen. Franklin Hagenbeck, the Army's deputy chief of staff for personnel, rejected that accusation. "I don't regard it as a breach of trust," he recently told reporters, referring to the assertion. "I regard that as being a soldier in the United States Army. This is what we do."

Though troop numbers currently affected by Stop-Loss are not known because soldiers' personal military contracts are private, the actual number probably is low, as is public awareness of it. But both elements are likely to grow as more contracts expire daily and the new rules remain unchanged.

Stop-Loss rules previously applied only to troops already in Iraq or Afghanistan. But the newly expanded program, along with the recent recall of 5,600 soldiers who had completed active duty and returned to civilian life, has been defended by Pentagon and Bush administration officials as a distasteful but necessary means of maintaining unit cohesion and bolstering a temporarily overextended Army.

A major underlying reason for the overextension, Pentagon authorities point out, involves post-Cold War reductions that have trimmed the Army, which now has approximately 500,000 troops on active duty — about half its size 15 years ago. The problem stems, analysts note, from fierce pressures of fighting two wars simultaneously in Iraq and Afghanistan — where a total of about 158,000 troops have been deployed — while maintaining force commitments in South Korea and Germany (with about 40,000 and 70,000 troops respectively). Adding to the problem, critics claim, have been Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's plans to make U.S. forces leaner and more mobile.

To ease manpower strain, Bush yesterday announced plans to redeploy 60,000 to 70,000 troops from Europe and Asia — most of whom will be based in the United States.

Nevertheless, Congress believes the force overextension problem must be resolved with a major personnel increase.

The Senate, for example, has voted for bolstering Army ranks with an additional 20,000 troops next year; the House calls for a 30,000 increase over the next three years. A compromise measure will probably be reached at a joint conference in the fall. Kerry, for his part, has pledged to recruit an additional 40,000 troops if he is elected.

But military officials have staunchly resisted mandated force increases. Such increases, they insist, would drain millions of dollars needed for technological development. They note, moreover, it will take at least a year to recruit, train and field additional troops — while the need for more soldiers is immediate.

So a practical answer, according to the Pentagon, lies in its present policy of stopgap measures to meet present needs that, hopefully, are limited in term.

Military authorities — who claim current recruitment and retention rates are satisfactory — also reject the idea of reinstating the draft, insisting all-volunteer forces are fine. Administration officials acknowledge a draft would be politically unpopular and insist there are no plans to reinstate it.

The 5,600 recalled soldiers affected by the other new Army measure belong to the 111,000-member Individual Ready Reserve. Although honorably discharged, they served less than the eight years' active duty stipulated in their volunteer contracts. They were automatically enrolled in the IRR and, despite their new civilian status, they were left with still-unfulfilled military obligations. Their recall, the first large-scale activation of Ready Reserve since the 1991 Gulf War, "is nothing new or unusual," said Lt. Col. Pamela Hart, a Pentagon spokeswoman, who described the measure as "a management tool we've always had available to augment our forces."

All recalls, Pentagon officials stress, are based on the soldiers' skills — such as medical, mechanical, technological or administrative specialties.

Despite officials' explanations, the new programs have been criticized by servicemen, military analysts and leading politicians. Some critics also cite them as evidence of the Bush administration's lack of foresight and competence.

Criticisms and politics aside, the primary burden is borne by the soldiers.

Sgt. Maj. Prosper, for example, noted that he first thought of leaving the Army early in 2001. In fact, he purchased a Florida home at that point for his wife and two children, then sought and was promised a job in a county sheriff's office.

However, the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks changed his thinking.

"As much as I loved my family and was ready for a new life," he explained, "I was a soldier first and foremost. I felt I couldn't leave the Army when my country needed me."

But now, after going to Iraq, seeing 13 men in his company killed and dozens of others wounded, earning a Bronze Star and being made top sergeant, Prosper really wants to leave.

"Yet I can't," said the veteran, who doesn't fear retribution because his superiors have long known about his wishes. "I'm in limbo because of the Stop-Loss program."

Other politicians, in addition to Kerry and McCain, have seized on his complaint.

For example, Rep. Steve Israel (D-Huntington), a member of the House Armed Services Committee, said the recall of IRR members is a "de facto draft."

"These people did everything the military asked of them and were free to go," Israel said in a recent interview about the reactivated soldiers. "Now they have to be literally hunted down and yanked from their civilian careers to go back to Iraq. I think that's disgraceful."

He added: "While the recall may be legally legitimate, it's entirely another matter in moral terms."

Also critical of the new Stop-Loss program is Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), who in late June sought unsuccessfully to introduce a legislative amendment providing soldiers with a $2,000 bonus for every additional month they are forced to serve beyond their contract.

"I am outraged by the Pentagon's action," the veteran New Jersey senator said recently about his proposal, which he tried to attach to the Senate's Defense Appropriations Bill for fiscal year 2005.

"Even the program's title is misleading," Lautenberg asserted. "'Stop-Loss' is a stock market term. It provides no clue to the many serious personal problems it creates for soldiers. It also reflects the administration's miscalculations and misunderstanding of the situation in Iraq — and its attempts to hide the painful truth."

Criticism of the Army policy, moreover, has not been confined to Democrats.

"Insufficient force structure and manpower are leading the services to make decisions that I liken to eating the seed corn," said Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. "That is, in order to make it through today, we do things that mortgage the future."

Andrew Exum agrees.

A former captain who fought with the 10th Mountain Division in Afghanistan and with the Rangers in Iraq, Exum, 26, left the Army in late May — less than two weeks before the new program was implemented.

A native of Chattanooga, Tenn., Exum wrote the recently published "This Man's Army," which describes Afghanistan operations in noble tones. He called Stop-Loss "a gross breach of contract" and labeled the recall of IRR personnel an "involuntary mobilization."

Both programs, he said, "place an unfair burden of sacrifice upon volunteer soldiers — many of them veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan — who already have made their share of sacrifice."

Most Americans, he asserted, haven't been asked to make any sacrifice.

"You'd be hard-pressed to find examples of how people's lifestyles have been changed by these wars," he said.

Exum's views are shared by David Chasten, another combat veteran who also left the Army shortly before the new program was initiated.

"The administration had three choices to compensate for its mistakes," said Chasten, 26, a former captain who served in Iraq with the 3rd Infantry Division. "It could recruit more people, which would cost more money; it could draft them, which would also cost more money as well as a lot of political points; or it could simply screw the guys who volunteered in the first place."

He added: "It obviously chose the third course, which is the cheapest way, and also is under the radar."

But the Pentagon wouldn't need its Stop-Loss policy, Israel pointed out, if the Bush administration had paid more attention to warnings that winning the war in Iraq would be easier than occupying it.

"The Shinseki incident symbolized this," the congressman said. "The administration's horrifically poor planning led it to believe that this could be done on the cheap. Shinseki told them otherwise, but they wouldn't listen." He was referring to testimony at a Senate hearing in February 2003 — several weeks before the Iraq war began — by Gen. Eric Shinseki, then the Army chief of staff.

Responding to a question, Shinseki, 61, a West Point graduate with 38 years' military experience — including a year commanding peace-keeping forces in Bosnia — said "something on the order of several hundred thousand soldiers" would be needed in post-war Iraq to maintain internal stability.

Two days later, testifying before a House committee, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, who never served in the military, disparaged Shinseki's assessment as "quite outlandish" and "wildly off the mark."

Insisting that Iraq was not plagued by the ethnic strife that has characterized regional conflicts in the Balkans, Wolfowitz added: "It's hard to conceive it would take more forces to provide stability in post-Saddam Iraq than it would to conduct the war itself."

Wolfowitz's views subsequently were echoed at a news conference by his boss.

Despite critics' assertions that many more troops are needed there, Rumsfeld has limited American forces in Iraq to approximately 140,000. Total coalition forces, including 9,000 British troops, number about 165,000.

Rumsfeld believes those numbers are sufficient. "If commanders in the field want more troops," he repeatedly has told reporters, "We will sign deployment orders so that they'll have the troops they need."

Iraqi troops are being trained to replace Americans fighting insurgents but administration officials are not certain how many will be needed, how many fielded and how well they will do. In the meantime, officials indicate Stop-Loss will remain as long as the problem does.

And families affected by the policy's restrictions will continue to be frustrated. "Whatever happens in terms of the larger picture, I would be very upset, to say the least, if my son is hurt in Iraq," said the mother of the Long Islander forced to remain in the 69th Infantry Regiment. "It's a crapshoot for anyone in the military, of course, but his odds have been skewed by government manipulation. He's been put in double jeopardy."

posted 24 august 2004

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