GI SPECIAL 3D52:
Sometimes Dreams Come True #1:
U.S. Troops Draw Up Own Exit Strategy
December 21, 2005 The Onion,
Issue 41•51
[Thanks to a whole shitload of
people who sent this one in.
Phil Gaspar writes: Satire
or the God's honest truth? You be the judge.]
BAGHDAD—Citing the Bush Administration's ongoing refusal to
provide a timetable for withdrawal, the U.S. troops
stationed in Iraq have devised their own exit strategy.
"My marines
are the best-trained, best-equipped, most homesick fighting
force in the world," said Staff Sgt. Cornelius Woods. "Just
give us the order, and we will commandeer every available
vehicle to execute a flanking maneuver on the airstrips of
Mosul. By this time tomorrow, we will have retaken our
positions at our families' dinner tables in full force."
In a
striking rebuke of the assertions of the Pentagon and the
White House that a swift exit is neither practical nor
possible, soldiers of varying rank have outlined a
straightforward plan of immediate disengagement, dubbed
"Operation Screw This."
"We kicked
around several withdrawal scenarios in our barracks, but
ultimately settled on the idea of getting out of here as
soon as possible," said Maj. Brian Garcia, who is on his
third tour of duty in Iraq.
Supporters
of the Iraq war say the reconstruction of politically and
economically devastated Iraq will take decades, and the
gradual process of departure will begin only after a lengthy
occupation.
"I'm
familiar with the 'years of occupation to facilitate
reconstruction' theory," said Army Spc. Megan Beaulieu.
"However, virtually every soldier I know, including myself,
gives more credence to the successful Dutch and Spanish
approach of 'we've done all we can here, let's move out.'"
She added:
"Apache helicopters could rendezvous with us in Fallujah.
If we left our supplies behind, we could be out of here in
15 minutes."
"I served
in South Korea and Germany," said Capt. Barry Graves of the
Maryland National Guard, a Vietnam veteran who at 57 was
called back into service last year. "I still carry shrapnel
in my leg from Khe Sanh. Is it time to go home yet?"
A recent
ABC News poll found that the American people are split on
the exit strategy. A University of Baghdad survey, however,
finds that the exit strategy has the support of
approximately 99.3 percent of the Iraqi population.
Pfc.
Barbara Terland expressed the sentiment of many soldiers and
Iraqis. "If the real reason we're here is to let the Iraqis
run their own country, I have the perfect solution: my ass
on a plane to St. Louis."
Inspired by
the unilateral policies of the White House, Pfc. David
Wareham has concocted a unilateral strategy of his own.
"My exit
strategy is beautiful in its simplicity," Wareham said. "It
involves me personally getting out of here the first chance
I get. If I do that, I just might get back to my son, who
is a year old and who I have never even met. If that
doesn't work, I'll revert to Plan B, which is to retreat
into complete insanity."
U.S. Army Chief Of Staff Peter
J. Schoomaker said he and the commander-in-chief are
analyzing the situation and devising the best possible way
to get the troops home safely.
"If the
chief of staff is truly interested in ideas about exiting
from Iraq," Pfc. Terland said, "I think that it would be a
great idea to debate it openly. Why don't we fly home to
Washington so we can discuss it together over a cup of
coffee?"
Staff Sgt.
Cornelius Woods debriefs Pfc. Jack Colin. (Onion)
[Gee, who
could possibly have written this one?]
MORE:
Sometimes Dreams Come True #2:
“Over that
way, Mr. President….some loonies calling themselves Iraq
Combat Veterans For Liberty. They’d like a word with you,
sir. Something about wanting to detain the “enemy
domestic.” Problem is, there’s about 20,000 of them,
they’re armed, and they look really pissed. We tried
getting through to DoD command on the secure phone but some
idiot said Rumsfeld and the JCS are under arrest. And all
your Secret Service personnel seem to have vanished.”
(President George W. Bush with presidential adviser Karen
Hughes Photo: Gary Hershorn/Reuter)
MORE:
Falluja
Christmas Carol
From: David
Honish, Veterans For Peace
To: GI Special
Sent: December 21, 2005
Subject: Falluja Christmas
Carol
The melody is, Pogo's "Deck
the Halls with Boston Charlie" {also known as, "Deck the
Halls with Boughs of Holly"}.
"Troops
Refuse To Go On Mission"
Fa la
la la la, la la la la.
It's a
Suicide Expedition
Fa la
la la la, la la la la.
Don we now
our body armor
Fa la
la, la la la, la la la --
Oops, they
don't supply us till next summer
Fa la
la la la, la la la la!
---------------------------------------
This is
like in "The Caine Mutiny"
Fa la
la la la, la la la la.
The whole
Command comes under scrutiny
Fa la
la la la, la la la la.
How're we
gonna get out of THIS mess
Fa la
la, la la la, la la la?
Let's bring
ALL troops home by Christmas
Fa la
la la la, la la la la!
Do you
have a friend or relative in the service? Forward this
E-MAIL along, or send us the address if you wish and
we’ll send it regularly.
Whether in Iraq or stuck on a base in the USA, this is
extra important for your service friend, too often cut
off from access to encouraging news of growing
resistance to the war, at home and inside the armed
services.
Send requests to address up top.
IRAQ WAR
REPORTS
Baghdad
Soldier Killed
December 21, 2005 HEADQUARTERS
UNITED STATES CENTRAL COMMAND NEWS RELEASE Number: 05-12-26C
BAGHDAD,
Iraq — A Task Force Baghdad Soldier was killed south of
Baghdad Dec. 19 from a roadside bomb.
Area
Soldier Killed
December 21 WNEP
The war in Iraq has claimed
the life of another soldier from our area.
First Lieutenant Michael
Cleary of Dallas was killed this week. He was with the
Army's Third Division. According to his father, Jack, 1 LT
Cleary was a platoon leader working at a bomb factory near
Samara with his explosives ordnance disposal unit when they
were ambushed outside the facility.
Cleary was a 1999 graduate of
Dallas High School and was the captain of the tennis and
soccer teams. He graduated with honors from Hamilton
College in New York state in 2003.
His family was notified of his
death Tuesday.
The superintendent of the
Dallas School District recalled Michael was an all-American
boy who could have done anything he wanted.
"He was a very attentive and
polite young man and he also was very loving to his brother
and his sisters. He was a protector. He really did some
wonderful things for the community and wonderful things at
our school and I will never forget him," said Superintendent
Frank Galicki.
The news of Cleary's death
comes just days before he was scheduled to return home.
Galicki also said the young soldier was to get married in
February.
1LT
Cleary's death brings to 19 the number of soldiers from our
area killed in action in Iraq. The first happened in 2003.
Most of the casualties are from the 109th Field Artillery,
which has units from the Poconos through the Wilkes-Barre
area and out to Williamsport.
Soldiers
from Lackawanna, Luzerne, Susquehanna, Northumberland, Tioga
and Pike Counties have died while fighting in Iraq.
Hockley
Soldier Dies
Dec. 11, 2005 By ANNE MARIE
KILDAY, Houston Chronicle
HOCKLEY -
Christmas cards from Sgt. Michael Taylor arrived at his
family's home here at mid-day Wednesday, just hours before
the Army notified them that the 23-year old had been killed
in combat in Iraq.
Inside the card to his mother,
Taylor wrote: "All I have to say is how much I love you and
will be glad to see you in January. I wish you a very merry
Christmas."
Stephanie Taylor Tompkins, his
mother, was unable to speak about her son's death Saturday
evening, as members of his extended and close-knit family
gathered to remember the soldier they once called "Little
Mikey."
An avid reader of mysteries
and thrillers, a devout Christian, and a young father,
Taylor had planned to restore a 1969 Chevelle when he got
home from the war.
Taylor, who was scheduled to
return to this small town south of Tomball, was killed in
Balad when an improvised explosive device detonated near his
truck.
Texas
Marine Killed
12/21/05 The Associated Press
BROWNSVILLE, TX: A U-S Marine
from San Benito was killed this week in Iraq.
The family of 20-year-old
Lance Corporal Samuel Tapia says Tapia died Sunday after
serving four months in Iraq.
Jackelyn Tapia told the
Brownsville Herald that her husband joined the Marines 15
months ago.
She says she and her husband
married one-and-a-half years ago and have a one-year-old
daughter named Samantha.
Family
Recalls ‘Jovial’ Soldier Killed In Iraq:
“He Was So
Close To Going Home. He Was Suppose To Be Safe Down There”
A memorial service was held
Thursday in Iraq for victims (from left) Philip A. Dodson
Jr., Marcus Futrell and Philip L. Travis. (Curtis
Compton/AJC)
December 8, 2005 By KEN
SEGIURA and CURTIS COMPTON, AJC
A Gwinnett County man was
among three Georgia National Guardsmen who were killed
Friday in a truck accident in Iraq.
The Department of Defense has
identified the three as Staff Sgt. Philip L. Travis, 41, of
Snellville, Spc. Marcus S. Futrell, 20, of Macon and Sgt.
Philip A. Dodson Jr., 42, of Forsyth.
The three died Friday at
Tallil Air Base of injuries sustained when their truck
rolled over.
Travis grew up in Alabama
before moving to Atlanta as a teen, his aunt Yvonne Carter
said. Travis previously served in the Navy, she said.
“He loved to read. He loved
computers,” Carter said. “He was a very jovial guy, a very
happy-go-lucky guy.”
Sgt. Bruce Westbrook, 47, of
Atlanta, was a friend of Travis.
“We met in Lawrenceville at
the guard unit. He was the cook. He was just a nice
fellow. We got to know each other pretty good and went out
together to eat lunch,” Westbrook said.
“He really cared about his
job. We use to say when we got back to Atlanta we were
going to go out and laugh about all this. He use to love
big knives and had a collection of them.
“He was so
close to going home. He was suppose to be safe down there.
I don’t understand it.”
The three accident victims
were assigned to the Headquarters Company of the 148th
Support Battalion, a unit of the 48th Brigade, based in
Monroe County.
With more
than 2,500 Georgians and nearly 2,000 soldiers from other
states, the 48th Brigade represents the largest overseas
deployment of the state’s Guard since World War II.
Friday’s accident brings the death toll for the unit to 25.
Two S.D.
Soldiers Killed
December 6, 2005 JONATHAN
ELLIS, CORRINE OLSON, Falls Argus Leader
Two South Dakota National
Guard soldiers from a Yankton unit were killed and three
others were wounded Sunday when their convoy was hit by
roadside bombs in Iraq.
Sgt. 1st Class Richard Schild,
40, of Tabor and Staff Sgt. Daniel M. Cuka, 27, of Yankton
died after two improvised explosive devices blew up near
their Humvees in Baghdad, said Gov. Mike Rounds. Their
convoy was attacked en route to an Iraqi police station.
Spec. Corey Briest of Yankton,
Spec. Allen Kokesh of Yankton and Pvt. Warren Bender of
Redfield were wounded. Their conditions were not released.
All of the men were assigned
to Battery C, 1st Battalion, 147th Field Artillery,
stationed in Yankton.
The two
deaths bring the number of service members with South Dakota
ties killed in the Iraq War to 15, including five National
Guard members.
News of the
loss has left the Yankton community in shock, Mayor Curt
Bernard said.
"I believe
that the community saw it as something that probably
wouldn't happen here, and now it's here," Bernard said.
Cuka leaves behind his wife,
Melissa, and two children, ages 2 and 5.
A graduate of Yankton High
School, he worked as a line cook at Yesterday's Cafe along
with his future wife while in high school.
Owner Dan Trimble said news of
Cuka's death was difficult to take.
"You hear about people dying,
but this hits close to home," he said. "It's someone you
knew."
Cuka was a hard worker who
never said anything bad about anybody else, Trimble said.
"He had a reserved sense of
humor," Trimble said. "It was not loud or obnoxious."
Schild was the office manager
of Bon Homme Yankton Electric Cooperative. He and his wife,
Kay, had two young children.
Co-workers described Schild as
a dedicated family man.
"He loved Christmas," said
Merlin Goehring, who worked with Schild at the electric
cooperative. "He was always looking for new ways to
decorate. He always wanted the Christmas tree up before
Thanksgiving, and I would tell him, 'You can't light it up
until Friday.' "
Ron Koupal, the retired
general manager who hired Schild, said he enjoyed football
and golf.
"He loved the Minnesota
Vikings and the Nebraska Cornhuskers," Koupal said. "On
Saturday, all the Cornhusker fans would get together and
watch the game, and he was one of them."
Goehring said Schild graduated
from Mount Marty College in Yankton and became interested in
the National Guard.
On Monday, Goehring remembered
what Schild had told him when he decided to re-enlist
several years ago.
"He said he had never quit
anything, and he didn't want to bow out of the Guard, even
with the looming events in the Middle East," Goehring said.
Members of the Yankton
community said the two men's deaths will hit hard.
"These are old, big,
fun-loving, beautiful families that have been in the greater
Yankton community for generations," said Bernie Hunhoff, a
former state senator and publisher of South Dakota
Magazine. Members of the community and the National Guard
will meet today to determine what they can do to help, said
Guard spokesman Maj. Orson Ward.
The South Dakota National
Guard now has more than 160 members serving in Iraq, Ward
said. The vast majority are serving with the 147th.
The unit was activated in July
and underwent several months of training at Fort Dix, N.J.,
before being deployed to Iraq in October.
Soldier
With NJ Ties Killed:
“He Didn't
Go There Because He Wanted To Go”
“He Went
There Because He Had To Go”
December 12, 2005 The
Star-Ledger
NEWARK, N.J. -- A 101st
Airborne Division soldier with close ties to New Jersey was
killed by small arms fire Saturday in Taji, Iraq, when his
unit was attacked by enemy forces, the Army said.
Sgt. Clarence L. Floyd Jr.,
28, was a cannon crew member assigned to the 1st Battalion,
320th Field Artillery Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team
based at Fort Campbell, Ky. His mother and stepfather,
Valerie and James Kelly, live in Newark.
Floyd, a father of five, was
killed in Taji, about 20 miles north of Baghdad. Family
members said he was shot in the head by a sniper.
Floyd
joined the Army in October 2003, after holding a succession
of minimum-wage jobs in New York City, hoping to be able to
better provide for his family, his parents told The
Star-Ledger of Newark.
He was deployed to Iraq at the
end of September.
"He didn't
go there because he wanted to go," James Kelly said. "He
went there because he had to go. If these kids had jobs and
opportunity, they wouldn't even enlist."
Floyd was born and raised in
Harlem. He earned his high school diploma while a member of
the Job Corps, a federally administered education and job
training program. While in the Job Corps, he assisted in
relief operations in North Carolina following Hurricane
Floyd in 1999.
He will be buried in Calverton
National Cemetery in Suffolk County, N.Y.
Floyd is one of three soldiers
with the 101st Airborne killed in Iraq since Friday.
Counting
the three soldiers' deaths, 29 troops from Fort Campbell
have been killed since the 101st Airborne returned to Iraq
for a second yearlong tour starting in September.
THERE IS
ABSOLUTELY NO COMPREHENSIBLE REASON TO BE IN THIS EXTREMELY
HIGH RISK LOCATION AT THIS TIME, EXCEPT THAT A TRAITOR WHO
LIVES IN THE WHITE HOUSE WANTS YOU THERE, SO HE WILL LOOK
GOOD.
That is not
a good enough reason.
11.05: A US Marine from Echo
Company 2nd Battalion 2nd Marine Regiment at a snap
checkpoint in the Zaidon area. (AFP/David Furst)
TROOP NEWS
Morganfield
Soldier Injured
December 21, 2005 Advocate
Staff Report
A 19-year-old Morganfield man
was among several soldiers injured in a fatal roadside
bombing just west of Baghdad on Dec. 11 in Iraq.
SPC Stephen Matthew “Matt”
Odom was driving a Humvee while on patrol in Iraq when an
explosive device was detonated in the road, his family said
through a spokesperson. Odom suffered second degree burns on
his face, right side and mid-section, and a hip injury. He
was recently released from Brooke Army Medical Center in San
Antonio, Texas, where he was transported after the injury.
He and his parents are staying
at Powless Guest House, which is connected to the hospital,
while he is recovering.
Odom is the son of Dennis and
Karen Odom of Sturgis and Vicki Odom of Morganfield and is a
2004 graduate of Union County High School. The family
spokesperson said he and his parents are expected home
around Christmas, and he will be celebrating his 20th
birthday here in the county on Dec. 28.
“I Wish
That I Could Have Had Someone Tell Me, ‘Hey, Your Recruiter
Is Full Of Shit’’
12.29.05 Rolling Stone
In the TV spots, a burly
recruit scales a sheer cliff face, braving death, only to be
transformed, upon reaching the top, into a steely-eyed,
sword-wielding Marine. But on a crisp day in October,
college freshman Dave Airhart staged a stunning reversal of
such pro-military images.
The rugged,
twenty-four-year-old Marine, a veteran of both Iraq and
Afghanistan, scaled a climbing wall set up by a military
recruiter on the campus of Kent State University, only to
reveal himself, upon reaching the top, as a determined
anti-war activist. The message on the banner he unfurled:
"Kent, Ohio for Peace."
Airhart's anti-war drama,
taking place on the same campus where National Guardsmen
massacred four students at a Vietnam War protest in 1970,
became the nation's most-watched struggle over the war.
Enraged by the banner, a
military recruiter screamed, "Get the fuck off the tower!"
and scrambled up the wall after Airhart, forcing the combat
vet to ditch his harness and climb down the steel beams on
the back side of the wall. Once on solid ground, the
anthropology undergraduate was charged with disorderly
conduct and threatened with expulsion.
Battling to keep his peers out
of the military may seem an unlikely cause for a man who
eagerly enlisted in the Marines at age eighteen. But
Airhart has seen the horrors of war up close.
"I can't
imagine many people having a more well rounded perspective
of the war on terror than me," he says. Airhart saw friends
killed by friendly fire, unarmed civilians shot for no
reason and prisoners abused by his fellow Marines at
Guantanamo, where he served as a guard.
"I was
there four months," he says, "and there wasn't a day that
there wasn't some sort of prisoner-beating festivity going
on."
After "four miserable years,"
Airhart received an honorable discharge in 2004. An Akron,
Ohio, native, he enrolled at Kent State in large part
because of the school's anti-war reputation. On campus, he
joined the local branch of the Campus Antiwar Network, a
student group with chapters at more than a hundred colleges
and universities nationwide.
CAN's strategy is simple: Deny
the military fresh recruits, and the Pentagon, already
facing a 7,000-troop shortfall, will be unable to sustain
the war. Although federal law requires universities to open
their campuses to military recruiters in return for student
aid, CAN has succeeded in kicking recruiters out of schools
from Seattle to New York. In November, the student group
scored a major coup when San Francisco passed a ballot
measure barring military recruiters from the city's high
school and college campuses, a move that inspired Bill
O'Reilly to invite Al Qaeda to strike the city.
Airhart has made it his
personal mission to protect his classmates from recruiters
who distort the truth to seduce them into service.
"I wish
that I could have had someone who had been in the military
tell me, 'Hey, your recruiter is full of shit. He gets
bonuses for recruiting people, so he'll do whatever it takes
to get people to join.' It's like the rock-climbing wall
they put up at Kent: what's that have to do with going to
war?"
Airhart himself has received
widespread support, including an international petition
campaign called "Hands Off Dave." The pressure worked: In
November, Kent State did an abrupt about-face, canceling
Airhart's disciplinary hearing and dropping all charges
against him.
"Dave is drawing attention to
the immoral use of fun and games to recruit students," says
anti-war leader Cindy Sheehan.
"My son,
Casey, was recruited out of college. His recruiter promised
him the sun and moon to enlist. But he delivered only an
early grave."
THIS IS HOW
BUSH BRINGS THE TROOPS HOME:
BRING THEM
ALL HOME NOW, ALIVE
U.S. Marines escort the casket
of U.S. Marine Sgt. David Kreuter to Spring Grove Cemetery,
Aug. 20, 2005, in Cincinnati. (AP Photo/David Kohl) Email
Photo Print Photo
Either The
Army Or The Reporter Is Hiding The Lethal Nature Of This
Infection
[NOTE WELL:
THE CUTE LITTLE ARTICLE HERE FAILS TO TELL YOU THIS DISEASE
IS FATAL IF PARASITES ARE NOT ELIMINATED.
[IF
PARASITES ARE NOT ELIMINATED, THEY SPREAD TO THE VISCERA,
AND KILL.
[THIS CAN
TAKE MONTHS, SOMETIMES YEARS. THERE MAY BE NO OBVIOUS SIGNS
OF SICKNESS UNTIL INTERNAL ORGANS ARE DISEASED.
[ASK ANY
CIVILIAN DOCTOR SPECIALIZING IN LEISHMANIASIS.
[CUTANEOUS
IS THE FIRST FORM OF THE INFECTION, MEANING IT’S ON THE
SKIN.
[VISCERAL
IS WHEN THE PARASITE SPREADS TO THE LIVER AND OTHER INTERNAL
ORGANS.
[UNTREATED
VISCERAL LEISHMANIASIS IS FATAL, REPEAT FATAL. T]
Dec. 21, 2005 JAY PRICE, The
(Raleigh) News & Observer
RALEIGH - In addition to the
combat casualties suffered during a tour of duty in Iraq
last year, an N.C. National Guard brigade also had to
medevac 13 men back to a U.S. hospital after volleyball
games left them vulnerable to one of the Iraq war's most
exotic hazards -- an outbreak of skin ulcers that can grow
for years.
The victims, all men from the
same small unit, contracted cutaneous leishmaniasis,
characterized by weeping sores that refuse to heal, said Lt.
Col Tim Mauldin, the brigade's top medical officer.
"No matter what you do, it
just keeps getting bigger and bigger," he said.
Leishmaniasis is spread by the
bite of tiny sandflies, which deposit microscopic parasites
that cause the sores. It is endemic along the Iranian border
where some of the North Carolina troops served.
Another version of the disease
is fatal, but the main dangers for victims of this strain
are permanent scarring (the ulcers often occur on the face)
and loss of motion if the sores appear over a joint.
[LYING
BULLSHIT: There is one parasite.
The only
question is whether the infection is limited to the skin, or
goes inside the body organs. As long as the parasite is
infecting the skin, that can, and does happen.
[When that
happens, death is inevitable without major medical
intervention.
[The
parasite does not go away on its own. In the visceral form,
it burrows into the guts and lives there until it kills,
although, like cancer, it may take months or years before it
becomes obvious.
The illness is nicknamed
"Baghdad Boil." At the time the guardsmen contracted it
last year, the only way to treat it was to fly them back to
Walter Reed Army Medical Center for up to three weeks of
intravenous treatments with a drug called Pentostam. It is
not approved for use in the United States. The Army was
able to administer the treatment because it had gotten the
drug approved for experimental use.
[Pentostam
is the recommended treatment. If you are refused this
medication by some VA asshole, or some active duty asshole,
call the nearest newspaper and your Congressperson
immediately and point out that that somebody is engaging in
the attempted murder of Iraq combat vets, because
withholding the treatment is exactly that.]
The victims were all members
of an armor unit based in West Virginia. The unit is
permanently attached to the 30th Heavy Separate Brigade,
based in Clinton, said Spc. Robert Jordan, a Guard spokesman
in Raleigh.
None of the victims was
immediately available for comment.
A Guard
spokesman in West Virginia said last week he was having
trouble locating them.
All recovered, said Mauldin,
the brigade medical officer.
[Really? What is the basis
for making that claim? That the skin surface healed? Were
the soldiers tested for presence of the parasite in the
blood stream? The fact the skin heals means nothing at all
if the parasite has moved into internal areas of the body,
preparatory to killing the host.]
He said most of the victims
had played volleyball games in a court set up in sand that
was infested with the flies. Like the rest of the brigade's
soldiers in Iraq, they had used high-powered insect
repellent. Apparently, though, they had sweated it off as
they played in the searing heat of the Iraqi summer.
It was early in the
deployment, and their camp was still crude, so many were
also sleeping outdoors without insect nets.
It's possible that other
troops and U.S. contractors have the illness and don't know
it yet. Symptoms can take months to appear, and in rare
cases more than a year.
Because of the disease,
federal health officials declared in 2003 that troops who
served in Iraq would not be allowed to give blood for a year
after returning home.
[Hello? Big clue there? Get it? The parasite can be
inside the body, and in the blood stream. If not treated,
it can kill. Sorry to keep repeating that, but the word is
not getting out.]
Mauldin said the other
soldiers of the brigade had been told to get regular exams
at U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs hospitals and clinics
once they returned to North Carolina. They have full access
to VA treatment after coming home, he said.
The disease can be hard to
diagnose, because few U.S. medical professionals have seen
it. [Evidently it’s also
hard to write a factual newspaper story about. Otherwise
why the silly crap about different “strains”?
Leishmaniasis experts from
Walter Reed have traveled to large bases across the country
to spread the word about what to look for. Early in the
war, they moved from camp to camp in Iraq, raising
awareness.
The sores start as little more
than bumps. The wounds gradually grow, in some cases to the
size of a quarter or even larger. Army doctors reportedly
saw one lesion 3 inches in diameter.
Typically, each Guard victim
had just one sore, though some soldiers treated for
leishmaniasis reportedly have had more than 30. Others
developed knobby lesions that looked like tumors.
For the Guard victims, the
outbreak could have been worse.
[If the parasite is still
present, despite healed skin, there is no way it could
possibly get worse. A parasitic infection that kills is
about as bad as it gets.]
More than 800 U.S. service
members have contracted the disease since the Iraq War began
in early 2003, most of them in Iraq, though some also in
Afghanistan.
IRAQ
RESISTANCE ROUNDUP
Assorted
Resistance Action
21-12-2005 Al Bawaba &
Deutsche Presse-Agentur
Resistance
fighters opened fire in the western part of Baghdad on
Wednesday on the car of a senior official in Iraq's Ministry
of Agriculture, killing his driver and wounding the
minister.
Sources told Deutsche-Presse
Agentur that Hameed Mohamed Jawad, a general director at the
ministry, survived an assassination attempt and was
transferred to the hospital while one of his personal guards
died.
IF YOU
DON’T LIKE THE RESISTANCE
END THE
OCCUPATION
FORWARD
OBSERVATIONS
Americans
Have The Right, And The Duty, To Overthrow The Government Of
The Traitor Bush:
#1
19 December 2005 By Bob
Burnett, Common Dreams [Excerpt]
The Declaration of Independence reads, "when a long train of
abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object
evinces a design to reduce (citizens) under absolute
Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off
such Government."
The
Founders of the United States invoked this principle to
throw off the rule of King George 3. Now we have the
occasion to use it to remove emperor George 43.
For five years citizens have
suffered "a long train of abuses and usurpations" by George
W. Bush. This week brought the announcement that he
authorized domestic spying on civilians without bothering to
obtain court warrants. Bush admitted this, calling the
eavesdropping "crucial to our national security." He didn't
explain why he deemed it unnecessary to first get a warrant.
These
revelations were the latest in a series of outrages.
Americans
Have The Right, And The Duty, To Overthrow The Government Of
The Traitor Bush:
#2
21 December 2005 By William
Rivers Pitt, Truthout Perspective [Excerpt]
President Bush's assertion of
expanded Presidential authority is wrong legally and
morally. There is no justification for torture of prisoners
or spying on private citizens.
Two hundred
thirty years ago the Founders rejected similar activity, by
another George. It was despotism then, it is despotism now.
The conduct of the Bush Administration cannot be tolerated.
The
breaking strain has been reached, and those ideals we hold
so dear are indeed in mortal peril.
The
President of the United States of America has declared
himself fully and completely above the law.
The
Constitution does not matter to him, nor do the Amendments.
Laws passed to safeguard the
American people from intrusive governmental invasion have
been cast aside and ignored, simply because George W. Bush
finds it meet to do so.
Americans
Have The Right, And The Duty, To Overthrow The Government Of
The Traitor Bush:
#3
We hold these truths to be
self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are
endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,
that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of
Happiness. —
That to secure these rights,
Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just
powers from the consent of the governed, —
That
whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these
ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish
it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation
on such principles and organizing its powers in such form,
as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and
Happiness.
Prudence, indeed, will dictate
that Governments long established should not be changed for
light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience
hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while
evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing
the forms to which they are accustomed.
But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing
invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them
under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their
duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new
Guards for their future security.
The history
of the present King of Great Britain is a history of
repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct
object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these
States.
A Prince,
whose character is thus marked by every act which may define
a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
MORE:
Or, If That
One Doesn’t Do It For You, Try This:
“On the
other hand, proletarian revolutions, like those of the
nineteenth century, criticize themselves constantly,
interrupt themselves continually in their own course, come
back to the apparently accomplished in order to begin it
afresh, deride with unmerciful thoroughness the
inadequacies, weaknesses and paltriness of their first
attempts, seem to throw down their adversary only in order
that he may draw new strength from the earth and rise again,
more gigantic, before them, recoil ever and anon from the
indefinite prodigiousness of their own aims, until a
situation has been created which makes all turning back
impossible.
K. Marx
The
Eighteenth Brumaire
MORE:
Surveillance Judge Resigns To Protest Criminal Acts By The
Traitor Bush
21 December 2005 By Carol D.
Leonnig and Dafna Linzer, The Washington Post
A federal
judge has resigned from the court that oversees government
surveillance in intelligence cases in protest of President
Bush's secret authorization of a domestic spying program,
according to two sources.
U.S. District Judge James
Robertson, one of 11 members of the secret Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Court, sent a letter to Chief
Justice John G. Roberts Jr. late Monday notifying him of his
resignation without providing an explanation.
Two
associates familiar with his decision said yesterday that
Robertson privately expressed deep concern that the
warrantless surveillance program authorized by the president
in 2001 was legally questionable and may have tainted the
FISA court's work.
Robertson indicated privately
to colleagues in recent conversations that he was concerned
that information gained from warrantless NSA surveillance
could have then been used to obtain FISA warrants. FISA
court Presiding Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, who had been
briefed on the spying program by the administration, raised
the same concern in 2004 and insisted that the Justice
Department certify in writing that it was not occurring.
"They just don't know if the
product of wiretaps were used for FISA warrants - to kind of
cleanse the information," said one source, who spoke on the
condition of anonymity because of the classified nature of
the FISA warrants. "What I've heard some of the judges say
is they feel they've participated in a Potemkin court."
MORE:
The Traitor
Bush Also Breaks The U.S. Army Laws Of Land Warfare
December 21, 2005 Professor
Francis A. Boyle, GlobalResearch.ca [Excerpt]
[I]t was a
total myth, fraud, lie, and outright propaganda for the Bush
Jr. administration to maintain that it was somehow magically
transferring "sovereignty" to its puppet Interim Government
of Iraq during the summer of 2004.
Under the
laws of war, sovereignty is never transferred from the
defeated sovereign such as Iraq to a belligerent occupant
such as the United States. This is made quite clear by
paragraph 353 of U.S. Army Field Manual 27-10 (1956):
"Belligerent occupation in a foreign war, being based upon
the possession of enemy territory, necessarily implies that
the sovereignty of the occupied territory is not vested in
the occupying power. Occupation is essentially provisional."
If there
were any doubt about this matter, paragraph 358 of U.S. Army
Field Manual 27-10 (1956) makes this legal fact crystal
clear:
358.
Occupation Does Not Transfer Sovereignty
Being an incident of war,
military occupation confers upon the invading force the
means of exercising control for the period of occupation. It
does not transfer the sovereignty to the occupant, but
simply the authority or power to exercise some of the rights
of sovereignty. The exercise of these rights results from
the established power of the occupant and from the necessity
of maintaining law and order, indispensable both to the
inhabitants and the occupying force. . . .
Therefore,
the United States government never had any "sovereignty" in
the first place to transfer to its puppet Interim Government
of Iraq.
In Iraq the sovereignty still
resides in the hands of the people of Iraq and in the state
known as the Republic of Iraq, where it has always been.
The legal regime described above will continue so long as
the United States remains the belligerent occupant of Iraq.
Only when that U.S.
belligerent occupation of Iraq is factually terminated can
the people of Iraq have the opportunity to exercise their
international legal right of sovereignty by means of free,
fair, democratic, and uncoerced elections.
So as of
this writing, the United States and the United Kingdom
remain the belligerent occupants of Iraq despite their bogus
"transfer" of their non-existent "sovereignty" to their
puppet Interim Government of Iraq.
Thereunder,
the new Iraqi government that will be installed after the
self-styled elections of 15 December 2005 will still remain
a puppet government according to the laws of war.
What do you think?
Comments from service men and women, and veterans, are
especially welcome. Send to
contact@militaryproject.org. Name, I.D., withheld on
request. Replies confidential.
Victory Is
Not An Option, And It Never Was:
“Pity The
Military That Is Ordered To Try”
December 21, 2005 by William
S. Lind, lewrockwell.com [Excerpt]
In his address to the American
people last Sunday evening, President George W. Bush said,
"Yet now there are only two options before our country:
victory or defeat." As usual, Mr. Bush is wrong.
Victory is
not an option, and it never was.
The strategic objectives the
Bush administration set for this war, a peaceful, democratic
Iraq that would be an American ally, a friend of Israel, a
source of unlimited oil and of basing rights for large
American forces, were never attainable, no matter what we
did.
Strategies
invented in Fairyland cannot be implemented in the real
world.
Pity the
military that is ordered to try.
OCCUPATION ISN’T LIBERATION
BRING
ALL THE TROOPS HOME NOW!
OCCUPATION
REPORT
How Bad Is
It?
12.20.05 Luke Baker, Reuters
Driving
anywhere in Baghdad, let alone outside the capital, can
require an armored car and an escort. The armor might stop
the shrapnel from suicide bombs, and the escort might fend
off trailing kidnappers. But you never know for sure.
U.S.
OCCUPATION RECRUITING DRIVE IN HIGH GEAR;
RECRUITING
FOR THE ARMED RESISTANCE THAT IS
A US Marine Lance Corporal
foreign fighter searches a bedroom after demanding an Iraqi
citizen show his identification card, during a raid in
Fallujah. (AFP/Mauricio Lima)
[Fair is
fair. Let’s bring 150,000 Iraqis over here to the USA.
They can kill people at checkpoints, bust into their
bedrooms by force against the wishes of the citizens, make
them show their papers like in those old World War II
movies, root around in their personal possessions, overthrow
their government, put a new one in office they like better
and call it “sovereign” and “detain” anybody who doesn’t
like it in some prison without any changes being filed
against them, or any trial.]
[Those
Iraqis are sure a bunch of backward primitives. They
actually resent this help, have the absurd notion that it’s
bad their country is occupied by a foreign military
dictatorship, and consider it their patriotic duty to fight
and kill the soldiers sent to grab their country. What a
bunch of silly people. How fortunate they are to live under
a military dictatorship run by George Bush. Why, how could
anybody not love that? You’d want that in your home town,
right?]
DANGER:
POLITICIANS AT WORK
Fools
Babble About “Censuring” Bush
Dec 21, 2005 Bev Conover,
Online Journal Editor & Publisher [Excerpt]
There is no provision in the
Constitution of the United States that allows for the
censure of a president or vice president.
The Constitution is clear:
Article II, Section 4 states, "The President, Vice President
and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be
removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of,
Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors."
Ours is not a parliamentary
system in which the prime minister can be called to account
by the members or receive a vote of no confidence that
causes his or her government to fall.
So we have
to ask whether Congressman John Conyers, who quietly
introduced a motion Sunday to censure George W. Bush and
Dick Cheney for their crimes, has gone soft in the head?
Censure is a tool Congress
uses to reprimand one of its own, usually for an ethical
violation not a prosecutable crime. The member being
censured is expected to stand in the well as he or she is
shamed and reprimanded by his or her colleagues.
Can you picture Bush and
Cheney standing in the House well to be publicly humiliated,
especially when there is no constitutional provision for
such an action?
And if
somehow Conyers' censure resolution comes to fruition,
merely censuring Bush and Cheney for failing to abide by
their oaths of office and their mountain of crimes would be
another slap in the American people's faces.
Imperial
Asshole Cheney Takes A Bullet
December 21, 2005 By Nedra
Pickler, Associated Press
ABOARD AIR
FORCE II — Vice President Dick Cheney didn’t suffer for lack
of comfort on the cavernous cargo plane that he rode into
Iraq and Afghanistan this week.
The Air
Force loaded the plane with the “silver bullet,” a mobile
home in the sky strapped down in the middle of the belly.
The accommodations included
sleeping and working quarters that protected him from the
noise and cold of the cargo hold during a more than
five-hour flight into Baghdad.
The rest of
his traveling party was not so lucky. Cheney’s senior staff
and junior aides were assigned to a cramped three rows of
seats in front of the bullet, while reporters and Secret
Service agents had to sit in jump seats along the side with
a view of Cheney’s stainless steel exterior walls.
Despite the noise and seating
conditions on the C-17, Cheney’s staff eventually was able
to nod off after days of exhaustive travel. Cheney emerged
from his more spacious quarters at one point to pose for a
picture standing in front of several rows of his dozing
aides.
The vice
president is an iPod fan, and keeping it charged is a
priority for his staff.
Normally that isn’t an issue,
even when he’s flying around the world. Air Force II is
equipped with outlets in each row of seats.
But when
Dick Cheney was traveling home overnight Wednesday from his
diplomatic mission, most of the outlets went on the fritz.
Working
passengers began lining up their laptops to share the power
from a couple of working outlets, particularly the reporters
who urgently needed to prepare their articles to transmit
during a quick refueling stop in England.
But when
Cheney said his iPod needed to be recharged, it took
precedent above all else and dominated one precious outlet
for several hours.
The vice
president’s press staff intervened so a reporter could use
the outlet for 15 minutes to charge a dead laptop, but then
the digital music device was plugged back in.
BUSH URGES
AMERICANS TO SPY ON EACH OTHER THIS HOLIDAY SEASON:
Calls
Invasion Of Privacy 'The Gift That Keeps On Giving'
December 20, 2005 The Borowitz
Report
In a special pre-holiday
address to the American people, President George W. Bush
today said that the upcoming holiday season affords all
Americans a unique opportunity to spy on their neighbors,
and urged his fellow citizens to do so.
"My fellow Americans, over the
holidays many of you will be receiving new camcorders as
gifts," President Bush told his national television
audience. "Instead of making boring home movies of your
children, point the camera at the house next door and see
what your neighbors are up to."
Saying that the people next
door "might be evildoers," Mr. Bush said that by spying on
one's neighbors, "You're going to find out who's naughty or
nice."
Coming just days after he
defended his own practice of wiretapping phone conversations
without a court warrant, Mr. Bush's exhortation to t