GI Special:

thomasfbarton@earthlink.net

2.4.06

Print it out: color best.  Pass it on.

 

GI SPECIAL 4B3:

 

This Article is removed according to a request from Media General Property Newspaper

 

 

IRAQ WAR REPORTS

 

 

MND-B SOLDIER KILLED BY ROADSIDE BOMB

 

2/3/2006 HEADQUARTERS UNITED STATES CENTRAL COMMAND NEWS RELEASE Number: 06-02-03C

 

BAGHDAD, Iraq:  A Multi-National Division-Baghdad Soldier died Feb. 2 after the vehicle he was riding in was struck by a roadside bomb at approximately 6:30 p.m. north of Baghdad.

 

Marine Killed Near Fallujah:

“To Be Honest, I Don't Feel We Should Be Over There Right Now”

 

February 3, 2006 By Evelyn Holmes, WLSTV Chicago

 

A young Marine from the western suburbs is among the latest causalities in Iraq.  Sean Cardelli was killed when his unit was ambushed near Fallujah on Wednesday.

 

When students arrived Friday morning the flag outside the main entrance flew at half-staff in memory of 20-year-old Marine Private Sean Cardelli, a 2004 Lisle graduate who was killed in action in Iraq on Wednesday.

 

As the class day began -- students were informed of Cardelli's death.

 

Students remember Cardelli as a hardworking student with artistic talent.

 

"No one will ever forget this kid.  He was a good kid, and everybody knew him, and we're just all going to miss him," said Steve Miller, student.

 

"It's like a wakeup call for the rest of us, you know, this is real," said Neal McMahon, student.

 

At his former school, news of his death sparked new discussions about the country's mission in Iraq.

 

"To be honest, I don't feel we should be over there right now.  Someone from around here just died, so what's the point?" said Chris Schuston, student. 

 

British Soldier Killed In Traffic Accident

 

02/03/06 MOD

 

It is with deep regret that the Ministry of Defence has confirmed that a British soldier from the 9th/12th Lancers, and part of the Basra Rural South Battlegroup, has died in Iraq following a road traffic accident on the evening of 2 February 2006.

 

The accident occurred on the outskirts of Basrah City, in Basrah province, at 2317hrs local time (2017hrs GMT).

 

There was one other casualty who has been taken to medical facilities at Shaibah; he is expected to be released from hospital shortly.

 

Mission Preposterous:

Bring Them All Home Now

U.S. Marine engineers from the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) search for roadside bombs near a U.S. military base outside the western Iraq town of Hit January 28, 2006.  REUTERS/Bob Strong

 

 

AFGHANISTAN WAR REPORTS

 

 

Burqa Bomber Hits Checkpoint

 

2.3.06 Wall St. Journal & By Noor Khan, Associated Press

 

13 Afghan forces were wounded, four seriously.  Fighting began Thursday when police were deployed to the Haji Fateh area to hunt for Taliban rebels hiding there, Muhiddin said.

 

Local police chief Abraham Jan said the fighting started after insurgents ambushed a police convoy.

 

Three Afghan soldiers were killed along with two others when a bomber shrouded under a woman’s burqa blew up at an army checkpoint.

 

 

TROOP NEWS

 

 

51% Of “Conservatives” Want Troops Withdrawals

 

2.3.06 Wall St. Journal

 

Iraqi vote appears to have undercut Bush’s leverage:

 

“Elections may have encouraged the American public to support troop withdrawal,” say Journal/NBC pollsters Peter Hart and Bill Mclnturff.

 

Even 51% of conservatives back reductions.

 

 

 

Luverne Soldier Injured In Falluja

 

Feb 1, 2006 WSFA

 

It'll be a long road to recovery for an Alabama soldier wounded in the war in Iraq.

 

The mother of Corporal Clifton Trotter of Luverne says her son is now undergoing intense rehab at a military hospital in North Carolina.

 

She says he is improving every day and she wants everyone back home to keep praying for him.

 

Someone shot Trotter in the neck as he tried to rescue a fellow marine who had been shot.

 

It happened last month in Fallujah.

 

300 More For Fallujah

 

February 3, 2006 Rick Rogers, Sign On San Diego

 

CAMP PENDLETON – About 300 Marines and sailors from the 5th Marine Regiment left Camp Pendleton yesterday for a yearlong deployment to Iraq's Al Anbar province.

 

Their main mission is to train Iraqi security forces in and around Fallujah.

 

The 5th Marine Regiment last deployed in 2003, when it led the 1st Marine Division toward Baghdad during the large-scale combat phase of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

 

Its latest tour is part of a rotation that will send some 25,000 Southern California troops, most of them based at Camp Pendleton, to Iraq.

 

While Soldiers Died:

U.S. Army Officers Stole Iraq Aid Money

 

[Why not?  That’s what Bush sent the troops there to do.  Loot Iraq, that is, and steal the oil fields for his friends.  The officers were just skimming a little off the side.  But mob bosses don’t their employees free lancing, so off to prison they go, while the mob boss pollutes the White House.  He’s the enemy, not the Iraqis.]

 

 

2 February 2006 By Adam Brookes, BBC News, Washington & February 1, 2006 By JAMES GLANZ, New York Times Company

 

A former American occupation official in Iraq is expected to plead guilty to bribery, conspiracy, money laundering and other charges in federal court on Thursday for his actions in a scheme to use sexual favors, jewelry and millions of dollars in cash to steer reconstruction work to a corrupt contractor, according to papers filed with the court.

 

The official, Robert J. Stein Jr., served as a comptroller and funding officer in 2003 and 2004 for the Coalition Provisional Authority, which governed Iraq after the American-led invasion.

 

Mr. Stein is accused of stealing outright at least $2 million in cash of American taxpayer money and Iraqi money that had been set aside for the reconstruction of Iraq by the American occupation.  He also accepted more than $1 million in bribes and at least $600,000 of additional goods and cash that were the property of the C.P.A., the papers say.

 

The court papers depict a sordid exercise in greed and corruption that was spread much more widely that previously known.  Including the four people already arrested, the papers indicate that a minimum of three other still unnamed co-conspirators also played a role in the scheme.  In order to give more than $8 million in contracts and millions more in stolen cash to Mr. Bloom, the papers say, the conspirators accepted bribes, valuable goods and other favors.

 

 

Mr Stein admitted in court to conspiring to give out contracts worth $8m to a certain company in return for bribes.

 

But it didn't stop there.

 

Robert Stein admitted to stealing $2m from reconstruction funds.

 

Some of that money, the court heard, was smuggled onto aircraft and flown back to the United States in suitcases.

 

The e-mail exchanges between Mr. Stein and Mr. Bloom, as detailed in the papers, are remarkable in their illustration of the daily business of apparently greed and graft. "I love to give you money," Mr. Stein wrote on Jan. 3, 2004, as he began steering work on an Iraqi police academy to Mr. Bloom.

 

At other times, Mr. Stein warns Mr. Bloom about others who are threats to expose their scheme or may want to get in on it themselves.  "I will warn you to be very careful what you say around him," Mr. Stein writes on Jan. 27, 2004, about someone identified only as person D.  "If he ever knows what we are doing he will want 'his cut!' "

 

The goods included first-class plane tickets, watches and other jewelry, alcohol and cigars, the court papers say.  They add that Mr. Bloom kept a villa in Baghdad where women dispensed "sexual favors" in exchange for official actions in his favor or for refraining from exposing the scheme.

 

The actions took place in a vast territory surrounding the Iraqi city of Hilla, south of Baghdad, where Mr. Stein was put in charge of at least $82 million of reconstruction money despite a previous conviction for felony fraud, which his Pentagon background check apparently missed.

 

Mr. Bloom and some of the others wired money back to the United States to buy weaponry like grenade launchers and machine guns that Mr. Stein was prohibited from owning because of his conviction or that were illegal in themselves.

 

Other exchanges show the day-to-day realities of doing business in Iraq with Westerners who are far from the routine pleasures of home. "Thanks for the booze," Mr. Stein wrote on Jan. 27. "That will give me some bargaining material here and there."

 

Maine Running Out Of Soldiers For The Imperial Slaughterhouse:

Time To Send The Army Band?

 

February 3, 2006

 

LEWISTON, Maine –The Army National Guard could soon run out of Mainers to send to Iraq and Afghanistan because of the 24-month cap on how long citizen soldiers can be ordered into active duty.

 

Some 1,600 men and women from virtually every Maine unit have either served overseas or soon will, said Maj. Gen. Bill Libby, the top official in the Maine National Guard.  Unless the rules change, that means that there are few soldiers left that can be ordered overseas.

 

“In a year, we will literally be out of the fight,” Libby said.

 

Guard members who have already served overseas may volunteer to go back, and some Mainers have, but they can’t be forced to go.

 

Libby and his counterparts from across the country met in Washington earlier this week with Gen. Peter Schoomaker, the Army chief of staff.

 

There are concerns, he said, that the Army might begin picking off new recruits from different states to create ad-hoc units of soldiers to serve overseas. That would be like a football team changing players before every game, he said.

 

“That’s the way it was in Vietnam,” said Libby, who served in that war in 1968 and 1969. “When I got there, I didn’t know a single person.  There was always somebody coming and going.”

 

The only other way the guard could keep fighting would be to change Army policy, Libby said, but that would be a tough sell.

 

Under current policy, a guard or reserve member is not to serve on active duty for more than 24 total months.

 

Army officials last year considered, but did not implement, a policy shift that could have resulted in guardsmen and reservists being called to active duty multiple times for up to two years each time.

 

If the limit were set at 24 consecutive months, with some break between tours, then in theory guardsmen or reservists could be mobilized for multiple 12- or 24-month tours in Iraq or elsewhere.

 

Only a few small Maine units, such as the 195^th Army Band, have yet to serve overseas, Libby said.

 

There are now about 140 members of the Maine Guard, most of them from the Augusta-based 152^nd Maintenance Company, serving in Iraq. About 80 people from the 240^th Engineer Group, also based in Augusta, are serving in Afghanistan.

 

Another 170 Brewer-based soldiers from the 172^nd Infantry are currently on active duty at an Army post in Indiana preparing to go to Iraq.  The unit includes about 35 Maine soldiers who have been to Iraq before and volunteered to return, Libby said

 

Butter Bars

 

Letters To The Editor

Army Times

2.6.06

 

I would rather follow a soldier, regardless of rank, based on his experience and knowledge.  I found out the “backbone” of the Army is its noncommissioned officers.

 

I would rather follow a “noncom” with 10 years of experience and knowledge than some “butter bar” who has no experience and only a college degree.

 

Francisco Irizarry

Bensenville, Ill.

 

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

 

Letters To The Editor

Army Times

2.6.06

 

I just got back from Iraq with the 3^rd Infantry Division. I was the patrol leader for more than 45 combat patrols.

 

I have seen lieutenants let soldiers not pull security and be relaxed out in sector when they should have been pulling security.

 

The noncommissioned officers led and planned the missions and conducted them successfully.

 

You want to lead and plan?  Fine, it’s your job, but if you are failing, don’t be upset when an NCO steps up and makes the mission happen.

 

Staff Sgt. Glenn Laney

Richmond Hill, Ga.

 

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

 

Letters To The Editor

Army Times

2.6.06

 

The only reason some junior officers have a hard time with senior noncommissioned officers’ decisions being heard over theirs is because they have that “I’m the boss. I outrank my first sergeant or platoon sergeant.  I’m in charge” attitude.

 

Anyone who makes a weak “just because I’m the boss” decision without seeking the proper advice is just asking for a rebuttal.

 

I really appreciate the fact that there are organizations in the Army whose commanders make decisions based on experience and good advice versus just the rank somebody wears.

 

Chief Warrant Officer 2

Angel M. Cruz

Mosul, Iraq

 

VETERANS AND FAMILIES FROM FOUR CORNERS OF NY STATE MARCH IN ALBANY TO SUPPORT INTRODUCTION OF NY STATE DU TESTING AND HAZARDOUS CHEMICALS TASK FORCE BILL IN N.Y. ASSEMBLY

 

2.2.06 From George McAnanama, Veterans For Peace

 

Please post widely especially with media and especially with Independent media.  We must fight to protect our troops and the Iraqi people because Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld-Condi WON’T.

 

We will have a van full of Staten Islanders, heading to Albany for the Press Conference. That group will be led by Debra Anderson of Military Families Speak Out and George McAnanama of Veterans For Peace.  We intend to meet with legislators from both legislative branches and both Political Parties. This is a statewide campaign: please read the press release below and share this information with your colleagues.

 

This isn’t a partisan issue: it is a matter of life & death and health of our returning New York State National Guard and their families.  Depleted Uranium is poisoning our troops and the country of Iraq.

 

January 30, 2006

 

NO DU Coalition of the Hudson Valley

Joan Walker-845-679-6938

430 Ohayo Mountain Road

Woodstock, NY. 12498

joanwalker@gmail.com

 

Veterans from many wars and many parts of NY State will march in Albany on February 7^th from the Legislative Office Building to the nearby Vietnam Memorial where they will speak in support of a bill which will benefit N Y National Guard soldiers returning today from Iraq and Afghanistan. 

 

The NY STATE DU TESTING AND HAZARDOUS CHEMICALS TASK FORCE BILL will take responsibility for addressing the mysterious symptoms suffered by our NY National Guard soldiers returning from war.  These are often diagnosed as “undisclosed illnesses.”  

 

It will assist the New York soldier in getting the most advanced test for detecting exposure to radioactive “depleted” uranium (U-238), a product of uranium enrichment used in U.S. weapons and tank armor.   The bill also mandates a Task Force to set up a health registry of NY National Guard soldiers, to investigate the health effects from exposure to radioactive and hazardous chemicals and the precautions recommended for combat zones.   No NY taxpayer funds are to be used.

 

Assemblymen Jeffrey Dinowitz (D-Bronx), Kevin Cahill (D-Ulster County), and other Co-sponsors will introduce this bill at a Press Conference at the Legislative Office Building at 11:00 on February 7. 

 

The Veterans March, to set off immediately after, will be led by Iraq Vets Sgt Gerard Matthew and SSG Raymond Ramos, who are both ill and have tested positive along with other members of their Units, for radioactive U238.

 

Sgt Matthew’s baby girl, Victoria, was born with the same birth anomaly, missing fingers, seen in Iraq babies since 1991 when the U.S. began fifteen years of bathing Iraq with radioactive “depleted” uranium. 

 

“My husband went to Iraq to fight for his country,” Janice Matthew said, “I feel the Army should take responsibility for what’s happened.”

 

For info about Albany event & this bill, contact Joan Walker 845 679-6938 or Angela Morano 246-8952.

 

You Get Three Minutes, Chump:

“Chairman Buyer Has Slammed The Door In The Face Of America’s Veterans”

 

[Thanks to Don Bacon, The Smedley Butler Society, who sent this in.]

 

February 1, 2006 By Rose Aguilar, AlterNet

 

New rules on how much time veterans groups have to present budget testimony to Congress seem designed to limit vets’ influence on funding decisions. 

 

President Bush is scheduled to submit his budget request for the 2007 fiscal year to Congress on Feb. 6, and the country’s largest, most influential veterans groups are already on the offensive, saying they are being shortchanged again.

 

Chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee Steve Buyer, R-Ind., has implemented new rules: Veterans groups must submit their written testimony for budget requests and policy initiatives to the committee by noon on Feb. 6.

 

Two days later, veterans groups will present their testimony to the committee, but, for the first time in 60 years, they’ll be constrained by a three-minute limit.

 

“The revised schedule for hearings and the change in format amount to a slap in the face to individual veterans as well as the groups that represent them in the public policy arena.  Chairman Buyer has slammed the door in the face of America’s veterans,” says Paul Jackson, National Commander of the Disabled American Veterans (DAV), a 1.3 million-member group that works to improve the lives of disabled veterans.

 

“Buyer should not silence the voice of American veterans in the very committee that’s charged with ensuring the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has what it needs to care for American veterans,” adds Peter Gaytan, director of the veterans affairs and rehabilitation division for the American Legion, a 2.7 million-member veterans organization.

 

Joe Violante, national legislative director with DAV, says veterans groups are traditionally given 10 minutes to convey their budget needs, and the time constraints have never been strictly enforced.  “What we do is give Congress a perspective on what’s actually happening out there because we hear from our members about the problems they face on a day-to-day basis,” he says.

 

During wartime, it only seems appropriate to give veterans groups even more time to articulate their needs.  What can be accomplished in three minutes?

 

 

Five national veterans groups, including DAV, American Legion and Paralyzed Veterans of America have all called on Chairman Buyer to rescind the new rules and allow them to speak for the usual 10 minutes.  So far, the only request he has granted is to give the groups 10 minutes to speak on legislative issues, but the three-minute rule still applies to budget testimony.

 

Chairman Buyer’s office responded to questions about the time change, although Buyer did not make himself available for an interview.  Former and current Republican members of the House Veterans Affairs Committee did not respond to interview requests.

 

Russian Officers Hired Out Troops As Slave Labor

 

[Thanks to JM, who sent this in.]

 

February 3, 2006 Nick Paton Walsh in Moscow, The Guardian

 

The Russian military was facing growing public anger yesterday when, amid a flurry of high-profile cases of abuse, a senior officer was convicted of hiring his troops out as slave labour and pocketing the fees.

 

A Russian military court fined Vladimir Kontonistov 60,000 roubles (£1,200) and barred him from command for three years.  Prosecutors said the sentence was too lenient and said they would appeal.

 

Kontonistov was deputy commander of a division of the Strategic Rocket Forces in Siberia's Novosibirsk region, a unit that services Russia's nuclear missiles.  He hired out his troops to local businesses, according to Interfax news agency, a practice believed to be commonplace in an army in which poorly paid officers say they have to find ways to supplement meagre incomes.

 

 

The defence minister, Sergei Ivanov, a confidant of President Vladimir Putin and tipped as a possible successor, was criticised for playing down the incident at first.  

 

An outcry by civil society groups led to calls for Mr Ivanov's resignation, and protests outside the ministry of defence on Saturday.

 

This forced the minister to act, sacking the head of the academy and pushing through an investigation that has led to criminal cases being opened against 12 servicemen.

 

Mr Putin called the incident "horrible" and last week ordered Mr Ivanov to conduct a wide review of the "educational work" of the military. He also gave the boy's family a flat.  The local administration has awarded the family £10,000 in aid and Moscow's media now carry the details of a bank account to which the public can send contributions.  Russian state doctors have said they can operate on him to restore his genitals.

 

The cases have drawn attention once again to the wretched conditions suffered by military conscripts.  All Russian men are supposed to serve two years in the military between the ages of 18 and 28.  Reports of brutal initiation ceremonies and bullying are common.

 

The media reported 10 serious incidents in the past 24 hours.  In one case, Yevgeny Koblov, a soldier serving in Khabarovsk in the Russian far east, was heavily beaten in May last year, but lay in a basement for 24 days before receiving medical treatment.  He may also have to have his legs amputated, as may another conscript from Ekaterinberg who reportedly has similarly serious leg injuries.

 

In an attempt to confront one of the most unpopular issues in Russian society, the Kremlin has pledged to reduce the length of service to 12 months.

 

While few are now sent to serve in the violent North Caucasus, near Chechnya, it is estimated that hundreds die each year through accidents or through the ritualistic bullying inflicted by superior officers.  Forty-six soldiers died of non-combat injuries in one week alone last year.

 

 

 

IRAQ RESISTANCE ROUNDUP

 

 

(Graphic: London Financial Times)

 

Assorted Resistance Action

 

Feb. 3, 2006 The Associated Press & (KUNA) & (Reuters)

 

Guerrillas killed a policeman in the southern city of Basra.

 

Anonymous guerrillas opened fire here Friday on Abu Al-Khasib's chief of police intelligence, Major Jabbory Karim, injuring him and killing his driver, said Basra police spokesman.

 

Karim's car was attacked in a mid Basra street when the guerrillas opened fire to severely injure him, kill his driver, said the source, adding that the guerrillas fled the scene immediately.

 

Iraqi police source told Kuwait News Agency (KUNA) that anonymous guerrillas abducted policeman Akrab Abdulrahamn and driver Faisal Hazaa near Zaiton Bridge.

 

KIRKUK:  A translator working with the U.S. army was shot dead by gunmen in Hawijah, 70 km (43 miles) southwest of Kirkuk, police colonel Sarhan Khadir said.

 

 

 

Resistance Blows Up Key Oil Processing Plant On Pipeline To Turkey

 

Feb 2 (Reuters)

 

Insurgents have blown up an Iraqi crude oil pumping station feeding one of two export pipelines from northern fields to Turkey, an oil official said on Thursday.

 

Exports from the northern city of Kirkuk to the Ceyhan terminal in Turkey were already on hold after insurgents blew up two pipelines last week, just a week after exports resumed.

 

"They have attacked the new process plant near the west of Kirkuk which feeds the second export pipeline to Turkey," the official said.

 

"The pipeline was damaged in the first attack, workers were working on repairing it but now the feeding plant has been blown up so we don't know how long will it take now," he added.

 

Earlier this week, workers from Iraq's Northern Oil Company, seeking to restore exports to Turkey, had started repairing the pipelines under heavy guard.

 

 

FORWARD OBSERVATIONS

 

 

Vietnam War History 101:

“The Only Glory In War, Is In The Imagination Of Those Who Were Never There”

 

From: Mike Hastie

To: GI Special

Sent: February 02, 2006

Subject: Vietnam War History 101

 

Vietnam War History 101

 

If the American people knew how many Vietnamese civilians their government killed during the Vietnam War, they would have panic attacks.  If you really want to know the truth about that war, read the Vietnamese perspective of what they called, "The American War."

 

From the book, "Then The Americans Came," by Martha Hess.

 

Sa Huynh Village--Mrs. Qui

 

During the war my village was burned so many times by the Americans that we went to live in the mountains.  They bombed there too, and we came here.  All the villages were bombed, and many, many people were killed.

 

During the war with the French, I was still very young, and we lived in the plains, not the mountains.  In the second war, with Diem and the Americans, we were captured, beaten, and we were helpless when our homes were set on fire.  Bombs and bullets, killing and death.  How can we not hate the Americans.

 

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

 

Mr. Nguyen Duc Hanh (Heads the War Crimes Investigation Commission of Hanoi)

 

The United States "war of destruction" over Vietnam started in 1964, but the Americans officially began bombing Hanoi on April 17, 1965. The last day of bombing was on December 29, 1972.

 

There were two hundred days of bombing in total.  In 1966 they bombed Hanoi for twenty-two days; in 1967, ninety-two days; in the beginning of 1968, thirty-five days. That was the Johnson period.

 

In the Nixon period, they bombed from April 16, 1972 until December 29, 1972.  During the twelve days of bombing at Christmas that year alone, 2,027 people were killed, 263 missing, 1,355 wounded.  Of the 102 villages in the suburbs of Hanoi, all were bombed. Many, many, schools, pagodas, churches, temples, hospitals, and dikes were bombed.

 

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

 

This book alone is loaded with eye-witness accounts of atrocities.  There are several other books on the same subject.

 

When I made a trip back to Vietnam in 1994, I experienced the eye-witness voices of many people.  

 

When I came back to the States, I wound up being hospitalized for a week in a psychiatric hospital.  During that time, my father died, who was a WWII veteran.  So many other losses in my life surfaced as well.  

 

You cannot compartmentalize trauma.  When I dealt with Vietnam at a gut level, I also had to experience other traumas that had occurred in my life.  With a lot of help, I was able to work through everything.  It no longer has a death grip on me.  

 

It is not the traumatic events that destroy people.  It is the inability to feel the pain and suffering behind those events that destroy people's lives. I could carve that in stone.  Let it out, let it bleed, let it heal, let it be.

 

 

Mike Hastie

U.S. Army Medic

Vietnam 1970-71

February 2, 2006

 

 

 

 

“Clear, Hold And Build”

=

Destroy, Banish And Build Resentment

 

February 2, 2006 Joe Colgan, common dreams [Excerpt]

 

The city of Fallujah represents a microcosm of the larger nightmare.  We destroyed this town in order to save it.  More than half its residents remain as refugees in their own country, and Americans are again dying in Fallujah at an increasing rate (12 in the past two months).

 

The Pentagon's policy of "clear, hold and build" in reality does nothing more than "destroy, banish and build resentment."

 

“We’d Quickly Learn How To Construct And Deploy IEDs In The Enemy’s Path”

 

February 2, 2006 Dennis Rahkonen, Dissident Voice [Excerpt]

 

Suppose the United States was a weak Third World country that an invading superpower had attacked because it wanted to depose our leadership and steal our wealth.  You and I would fight for our freedom by the most effective methods at our disposal.

 

We’d quickly learn how to construct and deploy IEDs in the enemy’s path, knowing that they could be detonated remotely at little danger to ourselves.

 

If the bloodied, frustrated invader resorted to indiscriminate, repressive sweeps of our residential neighborhoods to try to solve the "problem," as U.S. troops in Iraq are routinely ordered to do, they’d achieve nothing but further alienate and anger us, leading to more Americans taking up the devastatingly effective IED tactic.

 

Suppose, also, that a majority of common people in the aggressor nation disapproved of the war that their very unpopular leaders had gotten them into, through a bogus rationale predicated on outrageous lies.

 

How long do you think it would take before our fiery detonations and the returning aluminum caskets of their hapless children combined to create an immutable, objective reality that would spell the enemy’s complete, ignoble defeat?

 

Not a defeat for those common people, who would attain a victory over their own reactionaries in power, but for that aggressor state’s equivalents of our Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld.

 

Be sure to attend antiwar protests slated for March 18-19 that will demand an immediate, safe withdrawal of all of our troops.

 

It’s the only way to prevent an otherwise catastrophic, staggeringly costly fiasco painfully borne by countless American mothers and fathers.

 

 

 

OCCUPATION REPORT

 

 

U.S. OCCUPATION RECRUITING DRIVE IN HIGH GEAR;

RECRUITING FOR THE ARMED RESISTANCE THAT IS

An Iraqi woman forced to kneel down with her children as a foreign fighter from the U.S. 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit searches her personal belongings near the western Iraq town of Hit January 28, 2006.  The Marines were patrolling the area in and around Hit in search of hidden weapons caches, improvised explosive devices (IED's) and insurgent activity. REUTERS/Bob Strong

 

[Fair is fair.  Let’s bring 150,000 Iraqis over here to the USA.  They can kill people at checkpoints, bust into their houses with force and violence, overthrow the 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

 

 

Bush To Request $120 Billion More For War

Which Side Are You On?

 

Comment: T

 

Much of the left press and internet have been full of propaganda kissing the ass of this or that politician who is packaged and sold as being “against the war.”  Kucinich and Murtha are a couple of examples, although both want more dead U.S. troops and more dead Iraqis, opposing as they both do the immediate withdrawal of all U.S. troops from Iraq.

 

Now Bush wants more Imperial death money.

 

We’ll see if anybody in Congress has the courage and common decency to vote no: not another day, not another dime, not another life.

 

The fake “anti-war” politicians for the Empire will spew their usual mealy mouth excuses for voting the money to keep the war going.  And their political apologists will spew their usual mealy mouth excuses for defending them, featuring the famous whine: “X isn’t as bad as Bush.”  The killers and their accomplices have one mission: to suck you into buying the con.  Fuck ‘em.  Reach out to the troops.  They can stop the war.  They stopped Vietnam, they can do it again.

 

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

 

02 February 2006 By Andrew Taylor, The Associated Press

 

Washington: The Bush administration said Thursday it will ask Congress for $120 billion more for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and $18 billion more this year for hurricane relief.

 

If approved by Congress, the war money would push spending related to the wars toward a staggering half-trillion dollars.

 

 

CLASS WAR REPORTS

 

 

Majority Of New Yorkers Supported Transit Strikers

 

February 3, 2006 By Christopher Hayes, Inthesetimes.com [Excerpt]

 

Among liberals (people who loathe Bush, oppose the war, favor national healthcare) there's an ambivalence about the strikers' demands: Who gets to retire at 55 with a half-salary pension?  The New York Times editorial page calls the strike "unnecessary," the union's account of negotiations "ridiculous," and bellows that TWU Local 100 president Roger Toussaint "should not have the ability to hold the city hostage."

 

But despite the near-unanimous condemnation by the city's mandarins and negative round-the-clock coverage, New Yorkers, astonishingly, support the strikers.

 

I get an inkling of this when I walk past an MTA bus depot in East Harlem on the strike's second day. Instead of a riotous mob shouting insults, cars honk approval as they zip past the picketers.

 

Polls commissioned by local news outlets bear this out, though you'd hardly know it from the coverage.  One, commissioned by a local ABC affiliate and conducted by Survey USA on the first day of the strike, asked the question: "In the transit strike ... whose side are you on?"  Fifty-two percent of respondents said the union.

 

Forty percent said the MTA.

 

A poll from local radio station WWRL found that 71 percent of respondents blamed the MTA for the strike and 14 percent blamed the union.  A poll by local cable channel NY1 found a majority of New Yorkers thought the union's demands "fair."

 

The real story of the strike is not the epic hassle it created.  It is the fact that despite universal condemnation from opinion makers, millions of New Yorkers were in solidarity with the strikers.

 

 

Received:

 

Forwarded to you by George McAnanama: Wage Peace!

 Veterans For Peace

 

Friends of Peace:

 

 

Next Staten Island Peace Vigil

Vito Fossellas office

Saturday February 4th,

4434 Amboy Road

at 12 Noon.

 

 

If you heard the State of the Union Address last night, you know that this country is facing more of the same, More cuts in healthcare, social security, education, more joblessness....and staying the course in Iraq......While the Rich get Richer and the Poor get Poorer....Not to mention taking away our civil liberties!

 

WILL WE STAND ANOTHER 2 1/2 YEARS OF THIS?

 

 

Take a Stand!

SAY  No More Funding The War!

 

 

Bring Our Troops Home

and

 Take Care of Them when they get Here!

 

 

What happened to

"We The People"

 

 

The Time Is Now

Enough is Enough!

 

 

Its the war!

OUT OF IRAQ!

NOW!

 

Debra Anderson

Vigil Organizer

718-818-8849

 

If you would like to be on this list or know anyone else who would like to be notified of our vigils let me know, if you want to be off, also let me know...