FORT LEWIS, WASHINGTON (August 16, 2006)  On the eve of Lt. Ehren Watada’s first military hearing resulting from his refusal to deploy in support of the illegal war in Iraq, three hundred supporters rallied in his defense at the gates of Fort Lewis, Washington.  Photo: by Jeff Paterson, Not in Our Name Aug 18th, 2006.  (Indybay.org)

Bush Calls On American Civilians And U.S. Troops To Organize For Revolution And Overthrow The Government

August 22, 2006 Guardian Unlimited

 Mr Bush said US troops would not leave Iraq "so long as I'm the president".

TRAITOR

SOLDIER-KILLER

DOMESTIC ENEMY

UNFIT FOR COMMAND

(8.23.06: AFP/Paul J. Richards)

IRAQ WAR REPORTS

101st Soldier Killed In Combat

August 8, 2006 The Leaf Chronicle

 A 101st Airborne Division infantry soldier died Saturday at the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany from injuries he suffered last Wednesday in Baghdad, Iraq.

 Pfc. Brian J. Kubik, 20, of Harker Heights, Texas, was assigned to Company A, 1st Battalion, 502nd Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team.  He was wounded when his unit came under enemy small arms fire.

 Kubik joined the Army in January 2005 and arrived at Fort Campbell four months later.

 He is survived by his parents, Barbara and James Flynn, also of Harker Heights.

 During his time in the Army, Kubik was awarded the Combat Infantryman Badge, Army Commendation Medal, Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, Iraq Campaign Medal and posthumously the Overseas Service Ribbon, Army Good Conduct Medal and Purple Heart.

 A memorial service for Kubik will be held in Iraq by his unit. He also will be honored during an Eagle Remembrance Ceremony Wednesday at Fort Campbell.

 A total of 165 Fort Campbell soldiers have died while supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom since March 2003.

Bend Marine Mourned:

“All-American Kid”

Aug. 21, 2006 By Barney Lerten, KTVZ.com and AP

 Marine Lance Cpl. Randy Lee Newman of Bend was killed in not his first, but his third encounter with improvised explosive devices in Iraq, including one that gave him a concussion and put him in the hospital for a week, a family friend said Tuesday as the military confirmed his death.

 The family of the 21-year-old Marine, born in Bend and raised in La Pine, learned of his death when Jerry and Ramona Newman got the fateful visit to their Bend home around 7:30 p.m. Sunday, family friend Cecil Wilson said.

 They were told Newman was riding in a light armored vehicle when an improvised explosive device blew it up just outside of Iraq's capital.

 On Tuesday, flags lined the driveway to the family home east of Bend. Newman homes from a large family; his father is a long-time painting company owner in Bend, and has eight brothers and two sisters, while mother Ramona has four brothers and a sister.

 Newman, who was deployed to Iraq in the spring, "was like my son," Wilson said. "My son's in Afghanistan. This is his best friend."

 Newman, born at St. Charles Medical Center-Bend, grew up in La Pine and moved to Bend in the fall of 2000 with his parents and two younger brothers, Dan, 18, who graduated from Mountain View last year, and Ken, who is 8, Wilson said. Newman was on the Cougars' wrestling team and was in the Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps.

 "Randy was involved in sports at all levels, baseball and basketball," and was on the varsity wrestling team, Wilson said.

 Newman was in the Marines within a year of graduation, just as he'd wanted, the family friend said.

 "The family's very pro what Randy wants," he said.  "We're not negative - no bitterness. There's extreme sadness, of course. It's a solid family, been around here for a long time and well-established in the community."

 Newman was the second Central Oregonian killed in the Mideast war this summer, following the June abduction and killing of Army Pfc. Thomas Tucker of Madras in Iraq.

 A count kept by Gov. Ted Kulongoski's office shows 67 people with strong ties to Oregon have been killed in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Three British Troops Wounded By Amara Base Mortar Barrage;

Imperial Command Declares Victory And Abandons Base

23 Aug 2006 Reuters & AP

 Three British serviceman were wounded during a prolonged mortar barrage on Tuesday on a British base near Amara, 365 km (230 miles) south of Baghdad, the British military said on Wednesday.

 17 mortar rounds were fired Tuesday at the British base in Amarah, 180 miles southeast of Baghdad, said Maj. Charlie Burbridge, spokesman for the British forces at Camp Abu Naji.  One wounded British soldier was hospitalized in stable condition, he said.

 Police had earlier reported that Katyusha rockets had been fired at the base, but later said it was a mistaken assumption because they found four rocket launchers near the base.  [Oh.]

 Burbridge said the camp, which has come under frequent attack in the past three years, was being closed down "imminently, in the next couple of days," as Iraqi forces were in a position to take over security in the area.  [And see below whose Iraqi forces those will be!]

 British forces would be repositioned to the east of Amarah and would focus on tackling smuggling, particularly of weapons, from across the border with Iran, he said.

 Amarah, 180 miles southeast of Baghdad, is a predominantly Shiite city where anti-U.S. [translation: anti-U.S. Imperial government] cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia wields considerable influence.  British troops have come under frequent attacks there.

 "If two days go by without some kind of attack in the direction of the camp, we'd be surprised," Burbridge said.

REALLY BAD IDEA:

NO MISSION;

HOPELESS WAR:

BRING THEM ALL HOME NOW

8.10.06: US soldiers at the site of a bomb and missile attack in Baghdad.  (AFP/Ahmad al-Rubaye)

AFGHANISTAN WAR REPORTS

Another Classic Of Imperial Arrogance And Stupidity:

Idiot Reporter Matched By Idiot Officer

23/08/06 Kandahar, Canadian Press & AP & CBC News

 A Canadian soldier was killed and three others wounded Tuesday in an attack in southern Afghanistan.

 Troops fearing a follow-up attack after the blast fired a single bullet at the two youths as they approached the scene of the bombing on a motorbike, a NATO statement said.  The bullet hit both youths, killing one and wounding the other.

 The body of a 10-year-old boy shot and killed by a Canadian soldier in southern Afghanistan was returned Wednesday to his grieving parents.

 When approached by The Canadian Press at his home, the father of the boy grew angry, denouncing Canada's military for the shooting.

 He refused to speak about the incident or give his name. 

 Several women in the family's compound began screaming and crying, their fists shaking as they tried to contain their sorrow. 

 [Gee, Canada must be a very odd place.  To this reporter, “fists shaking” is an expression of “sorrow,” which the first shakers are trying to “contain.” 

 [Everywhere else in the world, outside the mind of the shithead who wrote this, fist shaking is a fairly clear indication that those engaging in it would like to rip your face off.  But then this reporter probably is thinking of these people as quaint natives with their odd little customs.  Another of their quaint little customs is killing foreign Imperial propagandists, which the reporter hopefully will learn about sooner rather than later.]

 Colonel Fred Lewis, deputy commander of the Canadian contingent of ISAF, said he was concerned about a potential negative response from the community for Tuesday's shooting, and urged people to remain calm.

 "I think we need to pass the right message to the Afghan people," he said. "The message is that we're here to help them and we certainly would never want to hurt them." 

 [Not to be outdone by the idiot reporter, the idiot officer, after his troops kill the 10 year old and seriously wound his 17 year old friend, babbles about how occupation troops “would certainly never want to hurt them.” 

 [All that’s missing from this condescending comment is the offer of pretty glass beads to take the minds of the simple natives of their dead and wounded kids. Doubtless they will devise some reply to him also.   

[No lie lives forever, nor no liar neither.  Careening towards some unknown particular end, this occupation will unfold surprises before it achieves the only thing now known about it that is certain: that it will end, and not end well for the occupiers, who thought themselves world-conquerors and masters of forces beyond any mastering they could devise.  T]

“Beneath The Surface, It Is Boiling”

August 23, 2006 By CARLOTTA GALL, The New York Times [Excerpts]

Corruption is so widespread, the government apparently so lethargic and the divide between rich and poor so gaping that Mr. Karzai is losing public support, warn officials like Ahmad Fahim Hakim, deputy chairman of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission.

“Nothing that he promised has materialized,” Mr. Hakim said, echoing the comments of diplomats and others in Kabul, the capital. “Beneath the surface, it is boiling.”

An opposition politician, Abdul Latif Pedram, said: “There has never been so much corruption in the country. We have a mafia economy and a drug economy.”  Most galling to average people is the corruption of judges, which makes redress nearly impossible.  There have been virtually no prosecutions of corrupt high-level or local officials. Corrupt police chiefs and governors remain in their positions or, if complaints grow too loud, are rotated to other jobs, said Mr. Hakim, of the human rights commission.

In southern Afghanistan the situation is so bad that people have begun turning to the Taliban for the swift, if severe, justice administered by mullahs, said Abdual Qadeer Noorzai, a human rights official in that region.

Afghan and international forces find themselves fighting daily battles across five provinces of the south, while casualties are rising sharply among civilians, foreign troops and government forces alike.  The scale of the insurgency has virtually wiped out the government’s ability to provide services in many places.

TROOP NEWS

[Thanks to Elaine Brower]

Finally, Somebody Tells The Truth:

British Troops In Iraq To “Protect Our Investment”

23/08/2006 By Thomas Harding, Defence Correspondent, Telegraph Group Limited [Excerpt]

After more than three years of fighting, with more than £3 billion spent and the loss of 115 British lives, the country has an "obligation to protect our investment", say senior defence sources.

IRAQ RESISTANCE ROUNDUP

(Graphic: London Financial Times)

Assorted Resistance Action

8.22.06 Reuters & VOI & 23 Aug 2006 Reuters & Evening Echo & (KUNA) & AP

A roadside bomb exploded Wednesday in Baghdad and narrowly missed the interior minister's convoy, killing two civilians and wounding several traffic policemen, officials said.

Interior Minister Jawad al-Bolani was unhurt and it was not clear if he was the intended target or whether the bomb had been meant for a U.S. military convoy that was about 500 yards behind.

The explosion in the neighborhood of Dora injured five traffic policemen, said Dora police officer Mohammad al Baghdadi.  Dora is an area US troops now regard as secure.  [So much for that.]

Resistance fighters killed one of the bodyguards of the governor of Anbar in a drive-by shooting in Fallujah.  The governor was not present during the attack.

Resistance fighters killed a police major and seriously wounded his driver as he was heading home in Baquba, 65 km (40 miles) north of the capital.

Two policemen were killed down in different incidents in the religiously mixed city of Baquba, 65 km (40 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.

Eight policemen and two civilians were wounded when a bomber wearing an explosive belt and a police uniform blew up himself near a police check point near the court in the northern city of Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.

The bomber was apparently trying to enter the police directorate building when he was stopped at the first of the several checkpoints around it, said Maj. Gen. Wathiq al-Hamdani, the city police chief.

He said the bomber detonated the belt outside the barricade.

Three traffic policemen were wounded by a roadside bomb near a U.S. patrol in Falluja, 50 km (35 miles) west of Baghdad, police said.

Guerrilla fighters killed a policeman on Tuesday in the small town of al-Hay, south of Kut, 170 km (105 miles) southeast of Baghdad.

A car exploded Wednesday near an army special ops check-point in Dorra area in southern Iraq, said a security source.

The source which preferred to be unnamed told KUNA that the explosion resulted in several deaths and injuries among the special ops troops in the area.

According to eyewitnesses the explosion caused the death of three soldiers and the injury of nine others. The security source did not verify this information.

Wednesday, an Iraqi army officer, 1st Lt. Hassanein Saadi al-Zerjawi, 29, was killed in a drive-by shooting in Amarah while a policeman was shot to death in a similar incident Tuesday night in Al-Hay, north of Amarah, police said.

FORWARD OBSERVATIONS

“American Soldiers Were The Beating Heart Of The Anti-Vietnam War Movement”

JULY 16 By Lydia Howell, KFAI [Excerpts]

Common to the point of cliché is the story that soldiers returned from the Vietnam War, met at the San Francisco Airport by hippie anti-war protesters, spit on by girls with love beads, who called the warriors "baby-killers".

The "spitting image", was almost totally-manufactured to erase a rebellious reality recovered with stirring immediacy in David Zeiger’s "Sir No Sir!".

That reality is that many American soldiers, in many different ways, joined the anti-war movement, when they returned or while still in uniform.

"Sir No Sir!" perfectly captures the sense of how the Vietnam War, a malignant a force as the massive bombing raids over rice fields and villages, also swept over the country from the mid-1960s, gaining ferocity through the war's close in 1975, and the movement to end the war was an equal and opposite driving force.

Zeiger mixes archival footage with current interviews, to focus on several Vietnam veterans' testimonies.  Discovering these lost stories, no one can doubt that (no less than combat), standing on individual conscience demands courage.

Refusing orders to go to Vietnam or refusing to fight after being there meant facing not only court martial but, years in prison.  Simply encouraging other soldiers not to go, was often termed "fomenting mutiny" and risked serious prison terms.  A Navy nurse was courtmartialed just for marching in a protest wearing her uniform.

We see the GI Coffeehouses, set up in the small towns near American military bases--and forbidden to soldiers who were drawn there like thirsty men in a desert.

Anti-war veterans created newspapers, with names like "Fatigue News", "The Last Harrass" and "Fed Up", eagerly awaited contraband shared in barracks across the country.

In a real way, American soldiers were the beating heart of the anti-Vietnam War movement: the friends, brothers and boyfriends of the more familiar images of students and activists.

So artfully has Zeiger allowed Vietnam veterans' voices to carry his film, we're feel we’re back in the 1960s vortex.

This is the absolutely right film at the right time, as support for the war in Iraq continues to decline and as resistance by American soldiers begins to grow: from veterans of the war in Iraq forming groups like Operation Truth to soldiers like Camilo Mejia, who spent a year in prison for refusing to do a second tour in Iraq.

Of special note are African-American soldiers, often disproportionately put in harm's way on the battlefield, yet, also increasingly awakened by the Black Power Movement.  They make deep connections between their experiences in a still-racist U.S. military and domestic discrimination.

In the voices of these black soldiers, Zeiger brings back pieces of the more militant aspects of the Civil Rights Movement, which has been as erased, vilified or both, as the GIs' anti-war movement has been.

Zeiger is even bold enough to reclaim Jane Fonda, who has been completely demonized (and misrepresented) for her anti-war activism.

Wonderful footage of Fonda's collaboration with fellow actor Donald Southerland and others to make an irreverent USO show that toured Japan and the Philippines: "FTA"---a play on an U.S. Army recruitment slogan "Fun Travel Adventure", known alternately as "Free The Army" or "Fuck The Army," and was a resounding success with the soldiers who saw it.

But, the core of Zeiger’s film is the warrior resisters, both in their grainy black and white, poignantly younger selves and the middle-aged men they are now.

From a young army doctor to white working class or urban black draftees, from individual refusals to participate in acts sometimes termed "genocidal" (such as pilots who wouldn't fly bombing runs) to mass resistance like organizing to stop the USS Constellation from leaving the San Diego port for Vietnam, this is a history the current war-makers don't want us to know.

The national VFP president, David Cline is one veteran in the film.  To bring this full circle, John Lamboke is another Vietnam veteran, also in the film, who did years of research and demolished the myth that soldiers were spit on by antiwar protesters, documented in his book "The Spitting Image".

SIR NO SIR fulfills what all great documentaries do: discovers something we might never have seen otherwise.

In honoring these soldiers who became warriors for peace, David Zeiger’s SIR NO SIR inspires us to redefine what true patriotism is and that "serving one's country" can be by waging peace.

Sir! No Sir!:

At A Theatre Near You!

To find it: http://www.sirnosir.com/

Enemy Fire

From: Dennis Serdel

To: GI Special

Sent: August 23, 2006

Subject: Enemy Fire by Dennis

Written by Dennis Serdel, Vietnam 1967-68 (one tour) Light Infantry, Americal Div. 11th Brigade, purple heart, Veterans For Peace, Vietnam Veterans Against The War, United Auto Workers GM Retiree, in Perry, Michigan

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

                  Enemy Fire

Barry was loving it shooting at the Colonel's

whirlybird, the great god in the sky.

His Lieutenant came running back panting,

“Barry, will you stop shooting

at the Colonel's helicopter, he's calling

on the radio telling me

my men are shooting at him.”

With moss on his teeth clenched,

eating out of cans, salt white sweat rings

around his neck shirt like a target, Barry spoke,

“Tell him to come down here

and fight with us and he will figure out

that we shouldn't even be in this war

and let's all go home.”

“But Barry,” “NO, instead, he is sitting

in his outfitted leather helicopter lounge,

with his ice and bar

so he can knock down one

if the stress gets to the pig.”

“Then after a tough day,

he flies back and takes a shower

and his Vietnamese whore child

helps him dress, buffs his boots

a couple of more times.” “But Barry.”

“NO, listen, then he saunters over

to the Officer's Club and orders

a thick steak medium rare,

mushrooms and onions,”

“take it easy on the onions,

heartburn, you know.”