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July 2, 2005

July 2 — Another National Anniversary
"BRING 'EM ON!"

By Stan Goff

On July 2, 2003, George W. Bush, caught up in his own bluster, uttered the words, "Bring 'em on," in response to a reporter's question about the dismaying frequency of a supposedly vanquished foe in Iraq.

On that day, only 65 American troops had been killed since May, when George W. Bush was flown onto the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln to deliver a victory speech, backgrounded by a huge sign that stated, "Mission Accomplished."

A lot has happened since them.

Most significantly, no mission has been accomplished, and the Iraqi resistance apparently accepted his challenge to "Bring 'em on."

Over 1,748 American corpses who used to be fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, brothers and sisters, grandsons and grand-daughters, nieces and nephews, friends and neighbors, have been flown out of Iraq. Most estimates are that more than 15,000 Americans have been wounded, many severely. And the human cost for Iraqis themselves – death, grief, and pain – is currently incalculable but certainly measured in the hundreds of thousands.

It's easy to talk trash from the White House, where its chief resident has attended one funeral while in office – that of the Pope. No dead soldier's family has had him cross its threshold.

No one seems inclined to get publicly personal about the President these days. This is a mean, punitive administration, as even its former employees can attest, like Valerie Plame and Paul O'Neill. Many people are intimidated by Bush's vile-tempered coterie, for which John Bolton has almost become a proud icon – though they refer to this kind of viciousness as "strength." Nasty, catty bureaucrats, who kiss-up and kick-down.

Among the exceptions who have not been intimidated by Bush & Co. seem to be veterans themselves and the families of the military. We don't intimidate easily and we do take things very personally. Bush and his cabinet are offensive people, even at a personal level.

We are offended by the schoolyard challenge of "Bring 'em on," and we grow more offended with each passing day. During his publicity stunt at Fort Bragg earlier this week, some of us gathered to call out the names of the dead, and while he said – again from the comfort and security of his presidential office and his privileged private-school upbringing – "We have to stay the course," a different "we" gave 1,744 names to "the course," and wondered aloud why anyone would want to stay on it.

A former military police Sergeant who served in Iraq, Kelly Dougherty, was asked what she thought about staying the course, and she said, "Staying the course when you are driving home is a fine idea. Staying the course when you are on a runaway train seems like a very bad idea." She is now a member of a growing organization called Iraq Veterans Against the War.

The Downing Street memos are just the latest in a trail of evidence (for those who didn't already know) showing that this administration was bent on the conquest of Iraq – not to destroy weapons or liberate anyone, but to plant permanent bases there – while Bush was still telling the public he'd made no such decision. But the other evidence is that they were planning it even before they came into office, and that September 11 was just the "Pearl Harbor" they needed to put their plans on fast track.

The notion that a group this cynical can be compelled to transform the occupation of Iraq into anything except what it is – a mission of bald conquest and a catalyst for social disorder and civil war – is the expectation that a pig will lose its appetite for table scraps. Most Iraqis, responding to independent polls, have said that the occupation is the biggest cause of the violence that wracks Iraq, and that they want to see the occupation ended immediately

Many veterans and military families now agree. On the anniversary of that offensive remark, "Bring 'em on," we say again – and say it clearly – Bring Them Home Now!

posted 02 july 2005

June 28, 2005

Another Karl Rove production — Bush speaks with troops as his stage props:

Opening remarks prepared by Moderator Stan Goff for the June 28, 2005 press conference at Quaker House, Fayetteville, NC, organized in response to George W. Bush's speech at Ft. Bragg: I retired out of 3rd Special Forces ten years ago, right up the road here when the out-processing one-stop was still over by the Main PX. My son's first assignment after jump school was there in the 82nd Airborne Division, and it was with them that he went to Iraq the first time.

Dozens more soldiers and hundreds more Iraqis have been killed over the past couple of weeks and not just killed - crippled, burned, blinded, amputated, consigned to colostomy bags and medication for their rest of their lives, and countless others will be driven a little bit mad by their experience. And we have no idea how many will be damaged by the ticking time-bomb in their bodies that is depleted uranium.

Not only are the troops suffering, but the families of those who are on their second and third deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan are living with unremitting fear, and I am one of those families. My grandson has seen his father for only a few months of his two and a half years.

Yet, tonight the President of the United States is going to come here to Fort Bragg and tell everyone in the country that this war is making people safer. In fact, since the Bush administration opportunistically used the terrible shock of 9-11 to advance what we now know to have been a pre-determined agenda, the number of terror attacks in the world has dramatically increased.

Let me say this very clearly, because the empirical evidence is very clear. Bush's war has not made anyone safer. It has, however, destroyed the lives of thousands of Americans and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, and according to international polls, the United States is now held in lower public esteem in the world than China.

The United States is already suffering higher casualties than we were at the same stage of the Vietnam War. So, okay, Iraq is NOT Vietnam. It could, in fact, get worse. Rumsfeld is now telling us that the war could last for 12 more years.

And just two years ago George Bush pulled his little airplane stunt on the USS Abraham Lincoln, and had a big MISSION ACCOMPLISHED sign as his backdrop.

Tonight he will use a captive audience of soldiers, who he commands, and who will be ordered to smile and cheer and shout hooahs at the appropriate points in this latest Karl Rove production, and I find that offensive. More than offensive, it is obscene.

I find it offensive that the very people he would send to death, disfigurement and despair in the service of this administration's lengthening list of lies, are now required, - when they could be home tonight with the loved ones they have missed so much in the last two years - to serve as stage props so George W. Bush can add one more bit of cheerleading hype, one more publicity stunt, to his resume. And in Iraq, every time the poll numbers spook the White House, they add one more so-called counter-offensive, each promising that there is light at the end of this tunnel, and each dispatching more military sedans to the homes of those who wait to hear the terrible news that someone they loved is no longer in the world.

George W. Bush is using troops as props, but he doesn't show up for the funerals of the troops who have been killed in his war. This is about as clear as things get.

This publicity stunt is an obscenity. It is an insult to the intelligence of the nation, that is now waking to the reality that this war had nothing to do with 9-11, nothing to do with weapons of mass destruction, nothing to do with liberation, but everything to do with establishing permanent military bases on the earth's biggest oil patch.

Americans are waking up, and members of Congress who let themselves be stampeded into this war need to put their wind meters back out, because while Bush doesn't have to run for anything again, every member of the House of Representatives and a third of the Senate are running in 2006. Americans are waking up, and they are in a very bad mood about this war, and as Bob Dylan once sang, it don't take a weatherman to know which way the wind blows. I'll tell my Democrat right now from the platform, if he doesn't fight to bring them home now, I'll vote a Republican who says he or she will. People are dying, and we will not respect on election day those who sat on a fence while the coffins arrived at Dover, and the cries of pain echoed off the walls at Landstuhl and Walter Reed.

Bush says if we declare a withdrawal date, the insurgents will wait us out. But we haven't even declared the *intention* to leave Iraq - in fact, it looks like we are building permanent bases there - and the Iraqi resistance seems to be growing stronger, more sophisticated, and more audacious with every day. This could not be happening if the resistance did not enjoy substantial popular support. And if our presence strengthens the resistance, how is this better than having them "wait the US out"?

We, who wasn't all of us after all, we had no business in Iraq in the first place. That's why this administration doctored evidence, attacked its critics, purged its own public servants, intimidated the press, and repeated 9-11 and Iraq in the same breath like a never-ending mantra for months, in order to get the American public to acquiesce to this crime.

Bush will get up there tonight and say that this is the first anniversary of newly-won Iraqi sovereignty.

But sovereignty is defined as supreme and independent political authority. How can anyone make the claim of independence, when they live in the Green Zone surrounded by foreign troops and a occupation authority that has veto power over any political action, the ability to order any press closed, and the ability to arrest and indefinitely detain that country's citizens without showing cause? How can any country be sovereign, when its entire security apparatus is under the control of a foreign military? There is no sovereignty in Iraq any more than there was an al Qaeda connection or yellow cake uranium.

The Iraq Sovereignty Scam was a Bush election-year stunt. And tonight is a publicity stunt. It is an offensive publicity stunt, using our troops as his personal stage props. He couldn't deliver this phony missive from the White House and leave these people alone to spend precious time with their families?

Don't sell us any more fake milestones, George Bush, that major combat is over, that Saddam is captured so the resistance will stand down, that sovereignty exists under a military occupation, that a constitution is being written under the careful eye of the US Ambassador, or that the insurgency is in its last throes, as Dick Cheney continues to insist in the face of all this blood and fire.

Here are our milestones. They are numbers.

500 is a milestone, when we count returning bodies. 1,000 is a milestone. We will soon enough see 2,000, after 250 more families blanch at the sight of a military sedan pulling up in front of their houses.

Our milestones are names, like Abu Ghraib, like Fallujah, like the Downing Street memo.

Can even the most careful journalist continue now to award the presumption of honesty to this administration? If we had half the analysis of the Michael Jackson trial devoted to the Downing Street memos, there would already be an impeachment under way.

Bush will stand up there tonight and talk about brave soldiers, and he damn well better say something nice after what he has put them and their families through. What he won't say, though, is that the bravery of the troops has nothing to do with whether that bravery should be placed in the service of an immoral, illegal, and un-winnable war.

There were plenty of brave soldiers who went to Vietnam, but it didn't change the outcome. We don't have to question the character of these troops to question the character of the commander-in-chief. In fact, there is something obscene about people like George W. Bush and Donald Rumsfeld riding around in limos and expensive clothes issuing orders like they are playing Risk, when the folly and criminality of those orders are felt as consequences on the bodies and spirits of soldiers and their families, and on the countless bodies of the Iraq people.

He damn well better say something nice, because just the other day, we watched not just our sons but our daughters killed in clusters, and when I saw that news report, I thought of the same thing I have thought of every day when I get on the internet and review the day's news about this war.

I think about his cavalier little aside to the press two years ago, when he said, "Bring 'em on!"

He said it. And they did. They brought it on. And we say, "Bring 'em home, and do it now."

posted 28 june 2005

June 13, 2005

An open letter to the troops in Iraq
and Afghanistan — on loyalty:

To the troops, again… my third letter to you
1st Letter
2nd Letter
By Stan Goff

I was a soldier for most of the time between 1970 and 1996. I signed out on my retirement from 3rd Special Forces in Ft. Bragg. I had also served in 7th Special Forces, on three Ranger assignments, with Delta for almost four years, as a Cavalry Scout for a while, and in the 82nd Airborne Division as an infantryman. I started my career in Vietnam with the 173rd Airborne Brigade.

I thugged around in eight different places in East Asia, Latin America, and Africa, where I pointed guns at people. Like you, I was an instrument of American foreign policies - policies controlled, then as now, by the rich.

In the course of that career, I heard everything you have heard and felt everything you have felt about "loyalty."

Tricky thing, loyalty.

Nowadays, when I talk with some of you, or when I hear conversations recorded with you, I hear many who have very serious reservations about these wars of occupation. I had more than reservations from the get-go about Iraq and Afghanistan, and I opposed them as hard as I could, and so did millions of other people around the world.

But that brain-dead piece of shit in the White House who is legally your boss, and all his handlers, starting with Vice President Dick "Halliburton" Cheney they sent you to do this thing anyway.

They talked themselves into believing this would be - and these are their words - a cakewalk. They surrounded themselves exclusively with others who echoed what was already in their minds; and they punished and vilified and isolated anyone who told them what they didn't want to hear. Because they made up their minds to conduct these invasions years ago, and with the attacks of September 11 - in which Iraq's role was exactly nothing- they figured now was their chance to conduct the re-disposition of the old Cold War military into their new plan to build permanent bases in Southwest Asia.

Since they'd made up their minds, they didn't want to hear anything except rosy scenarios for their plans, because these reptile-minded, preppy gangsters are like spoiled children who can't abide anyone fucking up their toy-emperor fantasies.

But when those fantasies did get fucked up, by the realities they ran so hard to escape, they continued to pursue their grim agenda in spite of the mounting consequences, because they don't pay those consequences.

If I had my way, we would issue the whole shriveled, manicured lot of them their assault rifles, put them aboard an Air Force transport, tighten the leg straps on their static line parachutes, and boot their sorry asses out from 800 feet right over the middle of Ramadi - where they could drop their harnesses in the street and explain democracy to the locals.

But that's just ranting, because I do so despise them. I hate people who get away with shit just because they have money and power. And I hate people who sacrifice the lives of others to amplify or protect that power.

But I'm not telling you anything. You all already know by now what generation after generation has learned the hard way. When the rich start their wars, it's not the rich that get sent to fight them. Yeah, a few go get their time as part of putting together a political career, but we know who does the heavy lifting.

And in these conversations that many of you have with me and thousands of other people, we hear you say - more and more often now - that you know this war is wrong, but that you have to "do your job," because you are loyal to your buddies; because you feel that you have to back them up; and because if you don't go, someone else will have to. And I respect that sentiment.

But I have to challenge this loyalty thing, and I do it out of respect for you, and because I care about you, and because my own son is back there for his second go-around.

A young friend of mine, Patrick Resta, who recently returned from Iraq, and who is now a member of an organization called Iraq Veterans Against the War, recently told me, "My platoon sergeant tried to get us to violate the Geneva Convention, and when we resisted, he threatened us with punishment. He told us that'the Geneva Convention doesn't exist in Iraq, and that is in writing at the Brigade level.'"

You all know that this is bullshit, and if you didn't know, let me give you a news flash about some - not all, but some - military lifers; and this is coming from a military lifer. Some of them are dumber than dog shit. Some of them say things when they don't have the foggiest fucking idea what they are talking about. Some of them will say any goddamn thing to get you to do what they want you to do.

But then again, there was a memorandum that came down that suggested the Geneva Conventions were void in Iraq. It didn't come from the Brigade level, though; it came from fucking George W. Bush's office. And it's a lie. That's why they sat there in front of Congress before they made the author of that memo into the Attorney General of the United States - get your head around that- and denied that they meant it.

But it is a lie.

You do not have to follow illegal orders EVER, under any circumstances, and you ARE bound by International Law. You should also be bound by what you know is right, by your sense of plain common decency.

One of the ways they will get you to do things that you will not want to live with for the rest of your lives is to impose that group-think on you. If one of us is guilty, we are all guilty. And "what happens in Iraq stays in Iraq." This is one of the many ways they take that buddy-to-buddy loyalty and twist it into a way to control you, even when they are trying to get you to violate the law and not only the formal law, but to violate what you know is right, to violate your own conscience and jeopardize your own peace of mind for the rest of your life.

And I'm telling you that you do not owe them or anyone else that kind of loyalty.

They know that many of you know that you were sent to do this thing for a pack of lies about weapons of mass destruction and mushroom clouds over New York City and phony al Qaeda connections (and then when that fell apart, you were there to deliver democracy at gunpoint). So they know that many of you can't stay committed to this violent occupation out of loyalty to that gang of thugs in Washington DC, who are busy every day at home undermining the same Constitution you swore to protect (from all enemies foreign and DOMESTIC).

They know that you know that plenty of the officers are out there trying to get new fruit salad medals on their Class-A uniforms, and bucking for promotion, by risking your asses on pointless glory patrols. So they know that they can't rely on the loyalty of many of you to the chain of command any more either.

Where do they have to go with this, then, after all? What do they tell you?

"You get out there on that Humvee, and face those IEDs - together, as loyal buddies."

"You get out there and ransack people's houses in the middle of the night, and make their babies cry - together, as buddies."

"You get out there and set up a road block without Arabic signs or interpreters and get put into that situation where you are tense and don't know, and you shoot up that car and kill parents in front of their children, and you have to live with that for the rest of your lives - together, because you are loyal buddies."

"You get out there and lose life, limb, or eyesight face mental and physical ailments for the rest of your lives together, as an act of loyalty to your buddies."

That's the pressure you have on you today. Cover your buddies, and for some of you, go to Iraq so someone else doesn't take your place.

But let's look at the bigger picture here, and for that I'll take you back to Vietnam, before many of you were born. We heard this same bullshit then. Almost verbatim. And do you know what one of the main contributing factors was for getting us out of that war?

We quit being good soldiers.

The United States military got to the point where it was no longer an effective fighting force, because US soldiers quit taking orders. It got to the point where an officer who was using his men's bodies to chase medals might find himself on the wrong end of a Claymore mine. Now I'm not advocating that again, and I hope we can stop this before it goes that far.

The other thing many soldiers did was become part of the political resistance at home. They looked at this question of looking out for their buddies and for fellow soldiers in the short term, but staying ina barbaric and immoral war. And they realized that the best thing they could do for their buddies - not as soldiers, but as human beings - was to enlist in the opposition to the war and bring it to an end.

In the process, many of them discovered that it took a lot more endurance and a lot more courage to oppose the war than it did to demonstrate that macho bullshit they were expected to display as they continued to do terrible things to those other human beings whose country they occupied.

Here's how you can exercise a deeper loyalty to the troops there now, and to all those who will continue to go as long as this obscenity continues:

Do everything you can to stop the war.

Question every order, and base those questions on the Geneva Conventions and the Law of Land Warfare. Let them see you keeping a detailed journal of your experience. Send your stories home in letters. Open up discussions about the legitimacy of the war when you are in your billets, even if it does spark controversy. Spread around information you get about the war from sources other than those loud-mouthed news-mannequins on FOX. And email or mail your anonymous membership in to Iraq Veterans Against the War. The link is at the end of this letter.

The day this war stops and they put the last of you on an airplane home, is when you will never again have to smell that fresh-blood smell that stays in your head for hours after you've loaded someone onto a stretcher or rolled them into that big Ziploc bag. The day will come when you all pull out, because this was a losing proposition from the outset, but Bush and his crew were too fucking stupid to know it.

The best thing is that this war of occupation ends sooner than later, and - as an exercise of loyalty to your own conscience, of loyalty to those who are there and those who may go there, and loyalty to the principle of human decency - you can find ways to hasten that day. You can find ways to bring closer the day when the Iraqis can get on about the business of taking control of their own destiny, and you and your buddies can sleep in security and comfort in your own homes, play with your children, make love with your partners, and walk down familiar streets unencumbered by the rattling luggage of war.

If bringing this day closer for all of you is the goal, how much more loyal can you get?

Yours for walking unencumbered,

Stan Goff US Army (Retired)

I encourage troops to show this to other troops. I encourage family members of troops to print it out and send it to them in letters, or to paste it into emails. I encourage troops and family members who are on military reservations to make copies and place them everywhere you can think of.

Web sites of interest to troops and their families:

www.bringthemhomenow.org
www.ivaw.net
www.veteransforpeace.org
www.mfso.org
www.girights.objector.org
www.occupationwatch.org
www.nlg.org/mltf

posted 13 june 2005

May 30, 2005

ON MEMORIAL DAY, CINDY SHEEHAN
REMEMBERS CASEY

Dear Friends,

26 years ago today, Casey was 6 hours and 49 minutes old. What a joyful day that day was. The birth of our firstborn. He was so wanted and his birth was so highly anticipated. A true bundle of joy.

One year, one month, and 25 days ago (almost to the minute) George Bush and his Crime Cabal killed Casey in Sadr City. One of them, perhaps Condi, Rummy, Bremer, or Cheney, might as well have pulled the trigger that blew off the back of Casey's sweet head.

When one embarks on the path of mourning a child, new experiences and feelings pop up constantly to suprise you. One of the feelings that I find amazing on this 2nd birthday since Casey has been in his premature grave is this: Birthdays are infinitely harder than death days. You are supposed to be sad on death days, but birthdays are supposed to be times of joy. We should be talking to Casey on the phone today, wishing him Happy Birthday. He should be thanking me for the present I sent him. Instead, we are heading to the cemetary for a Memorial Service. Then I think of the 24 Happy Birthdays we did have with him. Balloons, games, presents, cake, laughter, bar-be-ques (he was born on Memorial Day, so his parties were always bar-be-ques), pinatas, fun and love.

Bush and the Crime Cabal in power sent 26 more soldiers to their graves this week and 26 more families to lives of living hell. 26 more lives and families devastated and destroyed for absolutely nothing. We will see the hypocritical mobsters of the state at their events today and tomorrow spewing filth from their mouths, such as:"Freedom isn't Free," and "We must stay the course in Iraq to honor the sacrifices of the fallen." What was the great deceiver's course? Civil War? Because that's what it looks like our children were slaughtered for. Then the morons who killed our children will happily go back to their homes and have a nice Memorial Day dinner secure in the fact that their children will never die in a war and their children will have nice, wealthy, long lives because of the incredible riches this misadventure in Iraq has brought their fathers and mothers.

I mourn the thousands of innocent Iraqis dead for zilch and their families. Today and tomorrow, I will honor Casey and the 1656 others killed to pad some bank accounts. Not because they died to keep America safe, free, or democratized (on the contrary, quite the opposite), nor did their murders bring freedom and democracy to Iraq (on the contrary, quite the opposite); but because they were wrongfully murdered and someone needs to be held accountable. We as people of peace need to make sure that their lives and deaths were for peace, not deception and war.

Happy Birthday, Dear Son.

Love to you all,
Cindy

[Cindy Sheehan is a co-founder of Gold Star Families for Peace.]

posted 30 may 2005

May 28, 2005

A MESSAGE TO MILITARY RECRUITERS

There are stories all over the news about the trickery employed by enlisted recruiters to meet their quotas. This appeal is not in any way designed to support or defend helping enlistees to get fake high school diplomas or cheat on a piss-test. BUT...

...just as with the Abu Ghraib scandals, we think there is a deeper story here that is not being told, and as usual the enlisted personnel are being set up to take the whole fall for policies that are being pushed - with an element of plausible deniability for the brass - that are being buried in all the military hoopla about re-training E-5, E-6, and E-7 recruiters on military "values."

We also know, many of us veterans ourselves, of the immense power the military has to get even when people speak out.

ANY MILITARY RECRUITER who has a story to tell about how he or she was encouraged, cajoled, bullied, or otherwise pressured to "make quota or else" can send your accounts to us at BTHN@mfso.org, and we will publish credible accounts, as we protect you and your location to prevent retaliation.

We have never concealed out agenda to stop the same war that is putting you into the position you are in to "make quota," and we want to hear your stories whether or not you agree with our position on the war. As veterans and military families, we are not just opposed to the war against Iraq, we are opposed to high-level officials, officers and Department of Defense officials, going scot-free and letting enlisted personnel swing slowly in the breeze for policies and practices that they directly or indirectly pressured you into. WE WILL NOT VIOLATE YOUR CONFIDENTIALITY. We will only publish as much information as you permit. If you want to name names, we'll do that; but if you need a layer of protection, we will do that, too. We want the whole story out, and we do NOT believe that this bullshit "re-training in military values" for a "few bad apples" is the whole story. As people experienced in the ways of the military, we suspect there are pressures here going unreported, and we also suspect that - as always - a few enlisted people will get to take any falls.

Contact us. We are not just against the war. We are against abuses of power that blame the most powerless.

posted 28 may 2005

April 24, 2005

My response to Howard Dean after he advocated for the continued occupation of Iraq

Mr. Dean,

My son was KIA in Iraq on 04/04/04.

I have in the past admired you for your steadfast efforts for truth and for your integrity.

However, I seriously have to disagree with you when you say that the US can't leave Iraq now. I think that our mere presence in that country is fueling the insurgency that killed my son.

This revolt has also killed many more of America's sons and daughters (more than the official count) and has also maimed thousands of our nation's children. Very tragically, our very presence in that country has been responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis and for the destruction of the country.

Mr. Dean, don't you think that the Iraqi people can rebuild their own country? Before the US invasion in March of 2003, they had a very capable work force filled with construction workers, contractors, engineers, etc.

The Iraqi people are not feeble minded. To think that the Iraqi citizens need our military presence there to rebuild their country is arrogant and even racist. I think the 81 billion dollar appropriation's bill that the misguided and foolish Congress just passed would be better off being a reparations bill.

The argument that Iraq will descend into chaos if the US military presence leaves is also specious. The country is already a confusing entanglement of devastation.

Let's pull our troops out and see if that helps suppress the insurgency.

I know it will help stop American soldiers and Marines from being killed and maimed for absolutely no reason.

Also, I know you know the despicable condition that the VA system and military hospital system are in right now. Are you suggesting that we create thousands of more mentally and physically wounded of our children who will be dependent on a system that is so flawed?

If you recall, Congress just rejected 1.3 billion dollars in additional emergency funding for the VA. Who will diagnose and support our soldiers who are coming home contaminated by depleted uranium sickness? This serious consequence of our government's waging of a nuclear war in the middle east will never be recognized by our government. In addition to the physical suffering, I know some soldiers who have returned from this US led aggression in Iraq who are suffering terribly from PTSD and they have been waiting for over a year for VA approval to get treated.

PTSD is rarely diagnosed so our young people who were sent to fight an immoral, illegal and unnecessary war by their reckless and arrogant Commander-in-Chief have extreme difficulty receiving the help they need from their ungrateful government.

Mr. Dean even more importantly and catastrophically, this "war" is based on treasonous deceptions.

Not one American soldier, nor one Iraqi should have been killed for the irresponsible and tragic invasion and occupation of a sovereign nation. Common sense would dictate that not one more person should be killed for these same lies.

One of the people killed so pointlessly, my son, was more than enough for me and my family. I will live in almost unbearable pain until I die. First of all, because my first born was killed violently, and secondly, because he was killed for a neo-con agenda that only benefits a very chosen few in this world.

This agenda and their war machine will chew up and spit out as many of our children as they can unless we stop them now.

In 1967 it was recognized by our government officials that Viet Nam was not winnable. From that point until the "Pullout," 38,000 more of our sons and daughters were needlessly slaughtered. How many innocent Vietnamese were killed before we finally pulled out? Millions?

Continued sanctioning of the occupation of Iraq is continued sanctioning of premeditated murder.

Please use your forum to expose the pack of lies and the senseless blood and tears bath that this invasion/occupation is causing. We should not stay. We should not let Israel/USA invade Syria or Iran. The consequences of this would be too shocking to even contemplate.

The only way that I and my organization, Gold Star Families for Peace, feel that our children in the armed forces should be supported at this point would be to bring them home, immediately.

Additionally, my family and my group are offended by hearing this administration say that our troops have to remain in Iraq and complete "the mission" to honor our loved one's sacrifices.

First of all, no one can explain this constantly changing mission to us. Secondly, we don't want any more innocent blood spilled just because it is too late for our soldiers and our families.

When does all the blood shed become enough for our bloodthirsty leaders? Sorry to say, Mr. Dean, it appears that you have become one of them.

Mr. Dean, your speaking out as a representative of the Democratic party for continuing the occupation disgusted me beyond belief. I was going to give the Demopublicans (Republicrats) another chance when you were elected as Chair, but now: See you later, alligator.

You should be relentlessly and courageously fighting to end the occupation. You should be making sure that a consistent policy against all preemptive war is set in stone in our country. You should be joining us in the Peace movement in guaranteeing that our Nation's precious lifeblood is never used so carelessly again.

But, alas, you are like all the rest of the cowards who won't speak out against the pointless slaughter and I am distressed and disheartened.

Cindy Sheehan
Mother of Hero: Spc Casey Austin Sheehan
KIA 04/04/04
Co-founder of Gold Star Families for Peace
http://www.gsfp.org/

posted 27 april 2005

Fayetteville Ripples Spread Across America

The more than 3000 veterans, military family members and supporters from around the South and around the country who marched in Fayetteville, North Carolina, last weekend had one simple message: Bring Them Home Now! Now they are taking the message from this inspiring demonstration back home with them. Below are some of the voices who are carrying that message.

First, the truthout website has posted a live news report from the Fayetteville demonstration. Just click here and it should load and play on your computer.

Second, the invaluable Internet newsletter GI Special just printed the following interviews with returned veterans of the invasion and occupation of Iraq conducted by Martin Smith (USMC, ret'd)

Kellie Dougherty.

Can you tell me your name, rank, and service?
My name is Kellie Dougherty. I was an E5 Sergeant in the National Guard and then the Colorado Army National Guard for eight years and I was released last August, 2004.

Did you serve in Iraq?
Yes, my unit was in Iraq for approximately eight months and then Kuwait for another two. I was in a military police company.

Why are you here today?
I'm here today to show my support for the peace movement and to show to the public and to our government that we want an end to the occupation of Iraq.

What made you come to that conclusion?
I didn't believe the reasons that we were being given to go to war in the first place, and then when I got there and saw the horrible impact that the war and the occupation was having on the population of Iraq and on our own soldiers and all the reasons we were given were false to go to war, so it was people dying and people suffering for lies.

What did you see in Iraq?
I saw that the people were living in extreme poverty. Their situation wasn't getting better when we were there. They're just getting more desperate. Just things like an overt hostility on the U.S. soldiers' part towards the Iraqi people, and house raids. I know we raided people's houses even when we weren't sure if it was the right person. We searched people's vehicles. There were unintentional things like Iraqi children and families getting run over by our cars. And then just the continued poverty and the unemployment of the people.

What would you say to someone that's thinking of joining the military today?
You can probably count on going to Iraq and maybe talk to a veteran or someone who's been there, because if you just rely on your recruiter, they're just trying to sell you a sales pitch, and they're not telling you the whole truth.

Have you heard of the movement to kick military recruiters off of campuses?
Yes, and I think that's good, because schools are supposed to be places of learning, not places to become militarized, especially on high school campuses. I think that the recruiters shouldn't be on high school campuses, because basically what they doing is just preying on the lack of opportunities for young people, particularly low income and minority students.

Nicholas Przybyla

Can you tell me your name, rank, and where you served?
My name is Nicholas Przybyla. I was an E3 in the Navy. I served on the U.S.S. Peleliu with the Peleliu Amphibious Ready Group, 13th Marine Special Operations Capable. We did the first initial invasion of Afghanistan from 2001 to 2002.

Why are you here today?
I'm here to stop the war I guess trying to put an end to it and let people know what's going on is total bullshit. I had a top secret clearance and every day we would receive intelligence briefings twice a day, and it came down towards the end of our deployment that we had killed about twenty suspected terrorists, members of the Taliban.
      We got about seven hostages onboard and the total deaths of civilian casualties was about three thousand-most of them were children—, and I just don't think that's a good way to fight a war just to blow the shit out of a country, kill a bunch of innocent people, and then charge into another country that has nothing to do with it.
      Towards the end of our deployment the intelligence briefings that we got said that the 13th Marines had Osama bin Laden and all his buddies cornered in the Tora Bora Mountains, and it was only a matter of time before we uncovered them. After we were relieved, we were relieved by the (Bomb Homer Shard) Amphibious Ready Group. They went in and did the same thing that we did, have him even more cornered and after that they just let him go.
      All the troops were pulled out and sent to Iraq over bullshit when the real person that was responsible for September 11th was set free. That's a fact.
      That's the true intelligence, military intelligence that I received on a day to day basis and they say according to our intelligence the real threat was Iraq. Well I remember receiving those intelligence briefings and that's not the truth at all and I'm starting to think that's all a fact and my personal opinion is that I think the Bush administration wanted bin Laden to go free so that they could scare the rest of the country and just keep them scared and move into Iraq and not be questioned about it.

Did you know anything about Afghanistan before you went over there?
I joined during peacetime—the whole "Navy let the journey begin" thing—I came from a real shit hole in the Detroit area pretty much an abandoned industrial town because all the automotive companies pulled out so we didn't have any money.
      I joined the military to try to give my parents a chance to retire.
      We got to Darwin Australia on September 11, so we were the first troops deployed to Afghanistan and we didn't hear very much about it. The most vivid thing I can remember is just to show you how much the troops are brainwashed. When the planes hit the towers we heard that New York and Washington had been attacked and lots of Americans were dead. There wasn't any remorse on the ship, of course they were a couple of exceptions, but the majority of troops though on board were celebrating because they finally got a chance to go to war.

What would you say to someone that might be thinking of joining the military today?
I would say don't do it. It's not worth it. I joined the military and now like I said before sometimes I get people that come up to me and say thank you for your contribution thank you for protecting us and I think that's kind of stupid because we weren't protecting them at all.
      Our National Guard is gone. America's weaker than it's ever been on a home front attack, and it's completely pointless to go to Iraq and die over something that serves no purpose. It's completely insane.

Why did you choose to join Iraq Veterans against the War?
I think the main reason why I joined is because what happens is after you're involved in something like that and you know that people are dead from a direct result of you and the rest of your fellow soldiers, and sailors, marines and airmen being there that it just tears you apart inside and I think it's my duty to try and counter-recruit and get people to stop joining up so that they don't have to deal with this the rest of their lives.
      It's been about four years since it happened to me, and I still think about it every day. I don't want that for the rest of the year. Look at what Vietnam did. You walk down the street and look at the homeless and almost every single one of them is Vietnam-era age, and it's all happening again.

What do you know about the soldiers that fought in Vietnam?
My good friend's father was a Vietnam veteran and the last thing that he worked really hard after he got out of the military the last thing he wanted to do was have his son join the military, but his son went ahead and did it instead.
      The day before his son left to go into the forces, the first time he told us about his tour in Vietnam and he said he just couldn't explain how horrible it was walking through the jungle constantly, just covered in sweat, for nothing coming across your buddy and he's got his mouth sewn shut and went you cut the stitches to open his mouth his testicles come out of it.

Can you describe your Military Occupational Specialty?
My Military Occupational Specialty was photography. All the people from the different branches in service go to the same photography school in Fort Mead, Maryland. One of the courses of training is combat photo investigative photography accident photography.
      They trained us for a reason, but when we got to the Middle East and people were coming on board—prisoners of War, injured people, accidents, and stuff like that.
      We were take pictures to be translated and to be sent back to the United States and Military Police would come up and erase them from our cameras. And they did that because they were being told to do that. Obviously, I don't think that our Commander in Chief and all his buddies in office want our people seeing those kinds of images.

I see you have film equipment today. What are your plans?
I'm putting together a documentary that will hopefully get distributed to show the rest of the people that are out there who are feeling alone that the Iraq veterans are here and to come and join up.
      We can't be ignored, because a veteran of that war can not be ignored.
      You can't say you don't know what you're talking about. I've been many places where there will be somebody talking about you know those guys they go over there and when they come back you don't see the guys that went over there coming back and complaining because know that they've been there they know that it's for a cause.
      And I say, excuse me sir, what do you know about the military and he says my dad was in the military or something like that. It's completely ignorant. And I think the media that's being transmitted now days; they all have an agenda behind it. I just want to make this and show people exactly what's going on.

Have you heard about the military recruiters being kicked off some of the campuses around the country?
No, I haven't but I go to a community college in Los Angeles and I see recruiters there on a weekly basis and usually for the most part they're guys that have just joined. They don't know what they're talking about so you can't hold it against them, because they're going through the same brainwashing that we all went through when we were in there.
      So what I like to do is put on my cammie jacket and go stand right next to them and while they're passing out pro-join the service documents I hold out documents of peace from Iraq Veterans against the War. I think that I've successfully counter-recruited at least five people.

Tim Talib

Can you tell me your name, rank, and what service you were in?
My name is Tim Talib and I was a hospital corpsman third class in the United States Navy, and I served in Iraq with the Marine Corps?

How long did you serve in Iraq?
I was in country for seven months.

Why are you here today?
I'm here today to protest the on going occupation in Iraq. I believe that it's immoral and illegal under international law and I believe that we went into Iraq that our motivation had more to do with oil and imperialism than to do with Saddam Hussein or weapons of mass destruction which were never found or connections to 9/11 which were never made.

How did you come to that conclusion?
I believed much of that before I went over but my experiences in Iraq reinforced what I'd already believed, particularly with regard to weapons of mass destruction. We spent some of our time searching for WMDs, and nothing was ever found. Nothing was ever brought to light by the Bush administration. Their claims were completely false, and all the NBC (Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical) officers and other people that I talked with in country that were working on WMD searches never found any thing either.

Did you have any contact with the Iraqi people?
Yes, I had a good amount of contact with the Iraqi people in the Sunni triangle region so it was mostly Sunnis and a few Shiites. I didn't meet any Kurds at all.

Did you opinion of the Iraqi people differ from what the military said it would be like?
I never believed what the military told me about the Iraqi people to begin with.
      I went over there with the belief that the majority of the Iraqi people were good people that they didn't necessarily support Saddam either but they equally did not want us occupying their country and those beliefs were confirmed.
      I found that a lot of people in Iraq were intelligent, well educated people who already had some understanding of what they wanted for their country and the democratic processes that they wanted to implement and they didn't need us to come over and force those ideas on them.

What would you say to somebody that might be thinking of joining the military today?
Consider other options. It's not a good idea it's not a good time to be in and you don't want to be forced to participate in an occupation.

Hart Viges, 11 1/2 Months In Iraq, Army:

I'm here to make reparations.

When you realize that there is no boogeyman, people in Iraq are just like you and me with the same fears and loves and concerns, it just makes too much sense that war is not the answer. It's not supposed to be like this.

We need to make change.

We went out to look at a water construction project, and we had gunships as escorts. Two men with RPGs ran across the road, and I swung my rifle over and as he made it to a house, he froze in the doorway. And I froze with my weapon, and I saw his face, and it was not the monster I was expecting to see. He was a man like me, and I couldn't pull the trigger.

Andrew Plummer, Electricians Mate Third Class, Navy, Served On The USS Eisenhower.

Just discharged. Asked about what he would to say to someone thinking of enlisting:

You think it's a good opportunity. You think you're going to make your life better. You're not.

You think you're going to serve your country. That's not what the military is there for.

You think you're going to make the world a better place. That's not what the military is doing today.

The military is protecting American business interests and killing people to expand our power and generate more wealth for wealthy people in America.

Especially on high school campuses, it's very important to get the military off campus. These kids are 16 and 17 years old. They couldn't even get a car loan without a co-signer, and we have people coming and trying to get them to sign a contract to go kill and be killed.

Joshua Despain; In Iraq A Little Over Six Months:

That slogan (Support the troops) has been eating at me.

I've seen lots of people who have yellow ribbons on the back of their car, and I try to talk to them. The one thing that you can do to support me and the troops is to listen to our voice, and most people who have the mentality support our troops don't want to hear what we have to say about ending the war.

They think that supporting the troops is supporting the war, and it should be the opposite.

Support President Bush and our troops? That's a conflicting statement.

If you're supporting Bush, then you're not supporting our troops. And if you support our troops, you don't support Bush.

posted 27 march 2005

Duffle Bags

As I leave my metal box, that I have called home for the last year, I carry two duffle bags. The first is full of the gear and clothing that has offered me survival and protection. The other bag is harder to see with the uncompassionate eye. I have filled the second with guilt. The shame for the part I have played in this campaign in Iraq. It is more useless then the first. However, it is a burden I must carry.

The ritual a soldier goes through to fill a duffle with the maximum amount of gear is a wrestling match. It took every trick in the book to fit all my soul debt into the long green bag. First I rolled everything tight and squeezed it down pinching and tucking to wedge it in. As it filled I punched the sides. I held the edges and smashed my foot into the opening. I dropped it again and again like packing cigarettes. After fitting all my bad karma inside I had to sit on it while pulling and straining to clip the top closed. Out of breath I finally collapsed on top of the bulging bundle.

The duffle will be dragged around with me perhaps for the rest of my life. From home to home. Town to town. Until I am to old to lift it. Then I will lay down beside the large duffle and crawl inside to die.

So when you see a soldier returning home with a duffle bag at a bus stop, an airport baggage claim, or being stuffed into a taxi, think about what is inside the bag. It might be rolled clothing of browns and tans. Or, it could be dark secrets that he will never reveal to his family.

The soldier will not put his burden upon you. But if you feel any responsibility for the weight of it you may carry it for a while if it would make you feel more decent. And if you forced him to open it perhaps every one can take a little with them to relieve the strain of those who served. It might be a reminder that we are all at fault for America's role in the violence in the Middle-East. However, a soldier is trained to sacrifice. He will take the burden to the grave or make a grave out of it if he must.

The heretic

posted 11 march 2005

Important New Group Forms
Gold Star Families for Peace!

A new organization has been formed by men and women who have been active in Military Families Speak Out. This important group is not one that visitors to the Bring Them Home Now! website would ever want to join--it is an organization of mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers and other loved ones who have lost someone in the unjust and unjustifiable US invasion and occupation of Iraq.

We, each and every one of us who has come to oppose this war and who want the troops home right now, owe an enormous debt of gratitude to these brave men and women. In the face of devastating loss, they have taken a decision to do everything they can to save other families from suffering the same tragedy and experiencing the same grief.

The members of Gold Star Families for Peace gird themselves to talk with the timid, the skeptical, the hostile, the uncaring. Ordinary men and women, they dare to speak directly to the powerful politicians who have supported this war or opposed it only with weasel words, to the bland media which have for too long presented the government's official version of the war, and above all to this arrogant Administration and the Pentagon.

Their Mission Statement says it all:

We as families of soldiers who have died as a result of war (primarily, but not limited to the invasion/occupation of Iraq), are organizing to be a positive force in our world to bring our country's sons and daughters home from Iraq, to minimize the "human cost" of this war, and to prevent other families from the pain we are feeling as the result of our losses. We are also hoping to be lifetime support for each other through our losses.

Please check out the GSFP website, and please give your support to these fine, courageous people.

For Some, a Loss in Iraq Turns Into Antiwar Activism Gold Star Families Band Together to 'Make People Care'
By Evelyn Nieves
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, February 22, 2005; Page A03

VACAVILLE, Calif. -- Five minutes after President Bush began his State of the Union address, Cindy Sheehan clicked off her television set.

She would read the transcript, watch the salute to the parents of a Marine killed in Fallujah, chew over such words as "ultimate sacrifice" and "fight against tyranny" -- the next morning.

But that night, live, in her living room, so close to her son's photos and medals on the foyer wall -- no. It was too much to hear the cheering for the man who had sent her son to Iraq on the premise that Saddam Hussein stockpiled weapons of mass destruction. Casey Sheehan, a former Eagle Scout and altar boy who had joined the Army hoping to serve as a chaplain's assistant, was killed at age 24 in a war he wasn't sure why he was fighting. And more soldiers like him were dying every day. Where was the outrage?

Cindy Sheehan found it where she always does: in other families who have lost a loved one in a war they neither believe in nor want to believe will continue, without end, with the nation's acquiescence.

They call themselves Gold Star Families for Peace. Organized less than two months ago, it is part support group and part activist organization, with members united by grief and the belief that their loved ones died in a war that did not have to happen. They represent a small percentage of the families that have lost someone in Iraq -- 50 families out of more than 1,450.

The fallen soldiers' obituaries indicate that many of their families continue to support the war. But the Gold Star Families say they support the soldiers because their mission is to speak out to help bring them home and minimize the human cost of the war.

They include Bill Mitchell of Atascadero, Calif., who lost his son, Mike, 25, in the same April 4 ambush that killed Casey Sheehan, and who also was unable to watch Bush's speech. And Celeste Zappala of Philadelphia, whose eldest son, Sherwood Baker, 30, a National Guardsman, was killed while on the search for weapons of mass destruction. She watched Bush's speech with the sound turned down, "trying to discern some truth amidst the choreography of clapping and fawning." Other Gold Star Families shared the same knot in their stomachs, the same sense of stunned disbelief.

They worry that as the war verges on entering its third year, the public seems to be losing interest in it. When Sheehan tells people she lost a son in the war, she said, she is sometimes asked, "Which war?"

"It's like the American public can listen to the war news for five minutes, and then they can hear about Michael Jackson," she said. "We're trying really hard to bring it to the forefront, to make people care about what's going on there."

The families stumbled upon one another through the Internet and through Military Families Speak Out, an antiwar group for families with loved ones serving in Iraq. With no outreach and little publicity, Gold Star Families for Peace -- the name is a variation on American Gold Star Mothers, a group for mothers of slain soldiers that dates from the 1920s -- gets inquiries from two or three families nearly every day, Sheehan said.

They are regular people: teachers, civil servants, stay-at-home moms and hardware-salesman dads. Most are not used to political protests or speechmaking. Their loved ones -- sons, mostly -- had joined the military because they wanted to, usually out of a sense of duty.

Patrick McCaffrey, who managed an auto shop in Palo Alto, Calif., joined the National Guard after Sept. 11, 2001.

"He wanted to protect the homeland from terrorism," said Nadia McCaffrey of Tracy, Calif., Her only child, 34 years old and with a wife and two children, never dreamed he would be sent abroad to fight. "He would never have signed up if he thought that was a possibility," McCaffrey said. "His family was too important to him."

Gold Star Families do speaking engagements or grant interviews on a moment's notice, though they know the risks. Already, some people have written them off as grieving mothers -- most Gold Star members are mothers -- whose judgment has been clouded by emotion. They also know that many military families do not share their views. The couple whom Bush honored during his State of the Union address, Janet and Bill Norwood of Pflugerville, Tex., had written to Bush to express continuing support for the war after their son, a Marine sergeant, was killed last year.

The Gold Star Families say they feel the same empathy for families such as the Norwoods as they do for one another. But they say they, too, have written letters and made calls to Bush and to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, "yet there has been no response at all," Zappala said. On Inauguration Day, half a dozen Gold Star Families, letters in hand, tried to gain an audience with Bush and Rumsfeld. They were turned away at the White House by guards.

They plan more group events but are not sure what. Many of them will meet in person for the first time when they converge with peace organizations in Fayetteville, N.C., March 19 to mark the second anniversary of the start of the war.

Then, they say, they will go full steam ahead in speaking out against the war, together, in ones and twos, and with other peace groups. The most prominent member is Lila Lipscomb of Flint, Mich., who was featured in Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11." The film shows her encouraging her son, Michael Pederson, to join the Army for its career opportunities, only to end up grieving for him two weeks after the war in Iraq began.

"I consider being in that movie such a blessing," she said, "because it has given me the opportunity to have an audience."

Bill Mitchell said Gold Star Families in general have had no problem capturing a crowd's attention. "When we get together," he said, "it's pretty powerful."

For the families, discussions always begin with their loved ones' lives.

Mitchell talks about his son, Mike, a high school track star who found time for a run the day he died. He had volunteered for the Army with friends "out of a sense of brotherhood," said his father, a retired corporate manager. After 11 months in Iraq, Mike Mitchell was killed two weeks before he was scheduled to leave. Engaged to marry a German woman who had moved her graduate studies to Southern California in preparation for their life together, he was eager to return home. But he volunteered for one last mission.

It was the same mission that Casey Sheehan, in Iraq for two weeks, was on when they were ambushed. A devout Catholic, he had also entered the Army in solidarity with friends. He did not have a steady girlfriend, and had told his mother that he wanted to stay a virgin until he married. After his tour was over, he planned to become an elementary school teacher.

"The sons and daughters dying in that war are the most decent people," said Sheehan, who raised four children while her husband worked as a hardware salesman.

Vicki Castro's only son, Jonathan, could have gone to college but enlisted in the Army as a combat engineer, almost against his parent's wishes, she said. "We told him, 'Just apply to college and we'll pay for wherever you want to go,' " said Castro, a high school math teacher in Corona, Calif. "But he wanted to learn things most people don't, and experience things you don't when you go from high school to college."

He had designed and built scooters with motorcycle parts -- "chopperscooters," he called them. Upon returning from Iraq, he planned to use the Army's small-business loan program to open a shop on the beach and rent them out. He was more than ready to return, but the Army extended his stay one year. He died at age 21 in the Dec. 21 suicide bombing that killed 22 soldiers in a mess tent in Mosul.

Diane Santoriello, who teaches troubled elementary school students in Pittsburgh, knew her son would be sent abroad. First Lt. Neil Anthony Santoriello Jr. had joined the Army after high school.

"He wanted this as a career from the time he was in fifth grade, though he knew I wasn't crazy about it," she said. Neil had been an Eagle Scout, along with friends who joined the Army with him. "Nine scouts that were with my son are currently in uniform," Santoriello said. "His two best friends are over in Mosul right now."

Like other Gold Star families, she recalls that her son began to express disillusionment over Iraq. "Some of his men had to go to civilian Web sites to get boots," she said. "He did not have enough parts for his tanks." Neil, who had married his college sweetheart at 22, was killed on Aug. 13, one month shy of his 25th birthday.

"He was very interested in government and politics," his mother said. "We all knew that he was going to change our country in some way. Maybe I consider what I'm doing now a way of carrying on his work."

posted 22 february 2005

The New Year Seen From In Country
Resolutions Versus Reality

The sound of a single explosion in the distance plunges my heart into my guts. The group of Iraqi workers that I have been over-watching stops working for a moment. They lean on their makeshift shovels and watch the smoke curl up over the horizon. It is like a declaration of the insurgent's New Years resolution. An Iraqi laborer throws me an almost toothless smile "Ali Baba nooooo good." he says in a thick Arabic accent. I look at him without returning a smile and then back to the line of black smoke dividing the blue sky, all awhile hoping it isn't one of my friends hit by an improvised explosive device. We are too close to going home.

It has been such a long year and our battalion has had to endure almost every hardship that a modern war against a guerilla enemy can offer. Each day is an eternity of suffering. Although it seems like yesterday that we came into Kuwait to prep for our tour in Iraq. Like soldiers from all over the States are doing the now. My relief that I will be returning to Germany soon is washed by the sadness of seeing the young men of OIF 3 replacing me. The death toll has increased steadily since the beginning of the invasion and appears not to be declining soon.

So many of these Iraqi people have turned against us. Since the attack in Mosul the Iraqi workers on camp are watched by soldier escorts very closely. As I stare at my Iraqi laborers, they pass around a homemade lunch, barely enough to go around, I picture them with AK 47s. These men, aged from sixteen to mid-forties, are no different than the insurgents. Some of them even pick up arms against us when they leave our base. They are almost all farmers with some other odd skill. They make buildings out of brick and cement, they are electricians, painters or can lay asphalt. None of them can afford a plane ticket to the United States or arrange a means to get their on their own. They would spend the money, if they had it, on more practical things for their families. What threat would these peasants pose on me if I were back home playing catch with my little brother? Would they try to kill me while I sleep or bomb the building my father works at, blow up the train he rides home in? I don't see it. However, the longer we make enemies of these poor people the more likely it seems.

The last of the food is dealt out to the youngest and oldest of the group. They are all hungry; however, there is no argument as who shall get the remaining scraps. Would a pack of starving Americans be so civilized? They try to preserve their strength and life. My thoughts wander to the people killed accidentally by our bullets and bombs. I think about a mother's struggle to keep her children alive in such a harsh environment only to have them taken away one day without much thought to the lives affected. People's history, people's goals and dreams erased forever. Will I have to kill again before leaving Iraq?

It is New Year's Eve. If I could make a resolution it would be to never kill again. I don't think I can hold that one for long. It is like a resolution of a guilt-ridden mass murderer and here I am trying to struggle with the words. Did I volunteer to be a murderer? The way I am used by my country I suppose I have. When I joined, I imagined the honor-bound Army of the morally pure. I thought I was enlisting to better the world, like some virtuous super hero. I am as dry of honor as the Middle Eastern desert is of rain. My wicked assignment leaves nothing in my soul but shame. This is the mercenary war party I signed up for.

The insurgents fight with more spirit and dedication than our soldiers. They fight for something more than college money and a lie. A person who is out for money doesn't blow themselves up in a Army chow hall. They don't fight to the death in the streets of Fallujah. They can quit whenever they choose, they aren't punished by their comrades, they have no rank structure. Yet, they fight on. Why is our Army different? Because we are not an Army with the support of the American people.

We go to war and then the government informs the citizens the reason for it. Because we are not a democracy. My mother was never asked to vote on whether her son should go to war. She does not benefit from war. I don't fight for the will of my country, but for the elite one percent that gains profit from fat government contracts and manipulation of the oil market. At some point the US Military was hijacked by corporate America. It could have always been that way, however it shouldn't be. Maybe my resolution is to fight only for the people of the United States. However, that is also an impossible goal.

A Red Cross-marked Black Hawk chops through the air in the direction of the trailing smoke. What are the pilot's resolutions? What about the men hurt in the explosion? Are they practical? The common lose-some-weight, stop-drinking, quit-smoking promises don't seem to hold much importance while in the combat zone. Although any resolution I can come up with is beyond my control. Perhaps, only because I am thinking of change I can make alone. If I were united with more people of like ideals then there would be hope. Then there would be power for positive change. As I come to find my resolution I snap back to my duty at hand. I take a quick count of my appointed workers and relax when they are all accounted for.

So as any resolution. It comes down to will. It comes down to breaking apathy and motivating myself. My wishes are steep, however I don't resolve to complete my goals, only to try. That I can do. That anyone can do. As the helicopter passes again the ground vibrates with the concussion of another explosion. More dark vapors stream up from the city. More points to the board as each team runs up the score before father time blows the time buzzer. Perhaps a resolution answered. Perhaps a resolution failed. "Noooo good" says the toothless Iraqi with a smile. "No good," I reply.

Heretic
Baquaba, Iraq

posted 02 january 2005

The New Year Seen From In Country (part 2)
Thanks for Trying to Get Us Back!

hello Lou. hope everything is alright there. it is x-mass eve. i am in baghdad right by the airport.

so far this experience has been nothing like i expected. everything has changed so much since i was here last time. the highways that we run our supplies on, the bases, and the structures for us troops. it is kreepy because the stuff that they are building all says that we are not going anywhere soon.

in ways it is sick because literally everything is about money. it is almost like a sell-out war. anything like coffee cups, t-shirts, coats, bags and on and on all have OIF logos and shit on them. i am drinking out of the lid of my thermos cause i refuse to buy a coffee mug or anything else for that matter that says OIF on it. i tell all the soldiers that are with me that this is not a fucking disneyland or six flags, it is a fucking warzone. people are losing life and limb every day and it is not a positive thing.

out in the open desert i feel half way safe convoying due to the fact that there are so many soft targets heading south. convoy after convoy of trucks full of oil with military escorts. i have no faith in the decision-making process of the major officers appointed above me. so far this camp i am at gets rocketed or mortared 3 or 4 times a week. my first night here we got mortared. about a week ago i woke up and 2 trailers behind me a rocket hit sometime during the night but did not explode. i took pictures of it just sticking out of the sandbags reinforcing our sleeping quarters.

the same thing happened right outside where i work--another rocket was found just sticking out of the ground. when i 1st got here it did not matter if it was incoming or out going i just hit the deck. now it is just like nothing at all.

at night we can't have any lights on outside because we will be a possible target. but on the other hand we are still expected to salute? mortars are hitting all around us but it is just business as usual. but now a defac [dining facility] gets hit 220 mile north of here and they decide to raise our threat level. and i put my life in the hands of the people who make these decisions?

i am sorry--i did not mean to sound all negative. i wanted to make sure that my snake is healthy. has he been eating? also i take it that my car is ok? well, anyway i hope that you are having a merry x-mass. another thing i never made a copy of fahrenheit 911.

if you could get me a copy of it i will appreciate it. anyway i know that you are supporting us troops out here the best way possible. trying to get us back! a lot of soldiers are like sheep and don't see it that way. but know this one is really grateful for people like you.

happy brave new year.

posted 02 january 2005

"Bring 'em on!" two years later . . .
On July 2, 2003,  George W. Bush played tough guy with the Iraqi armed resistance.  After hearing Bush sneer "Bring 'em on" on TV, retired Special Forces veteran and military dad Stan Goff saw red. He pounded out this furious response, which appeared on the CounterPunch website the next day, and erupted through the Internet. Today, two years later, service members and their loved ones here continue to experience first-hand what "Support the Troops" actually means to the Commander-in-Chief.

By Stan Goff

In 1970, when I arrived at my unit, Company A, 4th Battalion/503rd Infantry, 173rd Airborne Brigade, in what was then the Republic of Vietnam, I was charged up for a fight. I believed that if we didn't stop the communists in Vietnam, we'd eventually be fighting this global conspiracy in the streets of Hot Springs, Arkansas. I'd been toughened by Basic Training, Infantry Training and Parachute Training, taught how to use my weapons and equipment, and I was confident in my ability to vanquish the skinny unter-menschen. So I was dismayed when one of my new colleagues--a veteran who'd been there ten months--told me, "We are losing this war."

Not only that, he said, if I wanted to survive for my one year there, I had to understand one very basic thing. All Vietnamese were the enemy, and for us, the grunts on the ground, this was a race war. Within one month, it was apparent that everything he told me was true, and that every reason that was being given to the American public for the war was not true.

We had a battalion commander whom I never saw. He would fly over in a Loach helicopter and give cavalier instructions to do things like "take your unit 13 kilometers to the north." In the Central Highlands, 13 kilometers is something we had to hack out with machetes, in 98-degree heat, carrying sometimes 90 pounds over our body weights, over steep, slippery terrain. The battalion commander never picked up a machete as far as we knew, and after these directives he'd fly back to an air-conditioned headquarters in LZ English near Bong-son. We often fantasized together about shooting his helicopter down as a way of relieving our deep resentment against this faceless, starched and spit-shined despot.

Yesterday, when I read that US Commander-in-Chief George W. Bush, in a moment of blustering arm-chair machismo, sent a message to the 'non-existent' Iraqi guerrillas to "bring 'em on," the first image in my mind was a 20-year-old soldier in an ever-more-fragile marriage, who'd been away from home for 8 months. He participated in the initial invasion, and was told he'd be home for the 4th of July. He has a newfound familiarity with corpses, and everything he thought he knew last year is now under revision. He is sent out into the streets of Fallujah (or some other city), where he has already been shot at once or twice with automatic weapons or an RPG, and his nerves are raw. He is wearing Kevlar and ceramic body armor, a Kevlar helmet, a load carrying harness with ammunition, grenades, flex-cuffs, first-aid gear, water, and assorted other paraphernalia. His weapon weighs seven pounds, ten with a double magazine. His boots are bloused, and his long-sleeve shirt is buttoned at the wrist. It is between 100-110 degrees Fahrenheit at midday. He's been eating MRE's three times a day, when he has an appetite in this heat, and even his urine is beginning to smell like preservatives. Mosquitoes and sand flies plague him in the evenings, and he probably pulls a guard shift every night, never sleeping straight through. He and his comrades are beginning to get on each others' nerves. The rumors of 'going-home, not-going-home' are keeping him on an emotional roller coaster. Directives from on high are contradictory, confusing, and often stupid. The whole population seems hostile to him and he is developing a deep animosity for Iraq and all its people--as well as for official narratives.

This is the lad who will hear from someone that George W. Bush, dressed in a suit with a belly full of rich food, just hurled a manly taunt from a 72-degree studio at the 'non-existent' Iraqi resistance.

This de facto president is finally seeing his poll numbers fall. Even chauvinist paranoia has a half-life, it seems. His legitimacy is being eroded as even the mainstream press has discovered now that the pretext for the war was a lie. It may have been control over the oil, after all. Anti-war forces are regrouping as an anti-occupation movement. Now, exercising his one true talent--blundering--George W. Bush has begun the improbable process of alienating the very troops upon whom he depends to carry out the neo-con ambition of restructuring the world by arms.

Somewhere in Balad, or Fallujah, or Baghdad, there is a soldier telling a new replacement, "We are losing this war."

posted 01 july 2005

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