GI Special:

thomasfbarton@earthlink.net

4.2.06

Print it out: color best.  Pass it on.

GI SPECIAL 4D2:

www.ivaw.net

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“They Spend Billions To Send Us To War”

“Why Can’t They Spend A Couple Billion To Get Us Back Into Society?”

 

March 31, 2006 By Paula Vogler, Correspondent, Herald Interactive [Excerpts]

 

Although First Sergeant Russell Anderson returned from Iraq to his Norton home in February 2005, the battle still rages for him as he seeks to return to the life he knew before his deployment.

 

One of many soldiers suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) but one of the few speaking out about it, Anderson, 55, speaks proudly of his service to his country.

 

Anderson spent a year in Iraq with the Army Reserves at FOB Speicher, a base 18 miles north of Tikrit, running convoys of fuel and other supplies to various areas.

 

"The biggest adjustment was that ’you’re not in Kansas anymore Toto,’" said Anderson. "The second day I was there the camp got mortared."

 

Proud of the fact that all soldiers under his command returned home alive, Anderson nevertheless returned with something he had not anticipated - Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

 

At first he was quiet and withdrawn.  His first nightmare came two months after returning home. He lashed out at those closest to him, especially longtime girlfriend Cathy Colon.  "She took the brunt of everything," said Anderson.

 

His relationship with Colon was falling apart, he said he was having problems at work, and he turned to drinking to help deal with mounting feelings of anger and frustration.

 

Anderson said the final straw came when he was watching fireworks in Virginia Beach, Virginia over the July 4th holiday. He was jumpy every time the fireworks exploded even though he could see and recognize them.

 

Colon also gave him an ultimatum - get help or their relationship was over.

 

Trying to get assistance, Anderson was first given an appointment with a psychiatrist through the Veteran’s Administration for Sept. 9. 

 

After that appointment was cancelled because the psychiatrist was not available, his next appointment was scheduled for the day after Thanksgiving when he would have been out of town.

 

Anderson would have had to wait until January 2006 for his first appointment, close to a year after he had returned home, if not for the intervention of a friend who was a psychiatric nurse with the Army.

 

His friend was able to work around the system to get him an appointment at the end of October and he said he began to heal.  He has been undergoing counseling and taking medication for the problem since then.  He said he has not yet been able to reconcile his feelings of what he sees as a character flaw in himself.

 

"PTSD, it’s a stigma," said Anderson. "It’s seen as a weakness. You are a weak person because you can’t suck it up."

 

Anderson said he is frustrated with the services available to returning servicemen and women through the Veteran’s Administration.

 

He blames the lack of funding for the problem.

 

"It’s not the people there; they are doing the best they can," said Anderson. "They spend billions to send us to war.  Why can’t they spend a couple billion to get us back into society?"

 

[Short answer: because “they” see no reason to. 

 

[Why waste the money?  The purpose of the armed forces is to defend the interests of the predators who own and operate the U.S. army for their own private profit. 

 

[This is not exactly a big secret. 

 

[Hurt troops are expensive, and, from “their” point of view, an annoying drain on money better spent invading and looting other people’s countries so the corporate interests who buy the politicians in DC can stuff their own pockets.  That’s what the armed forces are for. 

 

[All the bullshit about noble causes and defending democracy is just so much advertising hype.  “They” are in the looting business and, as far as the troops are concerned, “they” are in the betrayal business. 

 

[How much longer the troops will put up with these traitors is an open question, but the clock is running.  T]

 

LIAR

TRAITOR

SOLDIER-KILLER

DOMESTIC ENEMY

UNFIT FOR COMMAND

March 29, 2006. REUTERS/Larry Downing

 

MORE:

 

Dead?

No PTSD Diagnosis?

Tough Shit

 

3/29/2006 By OLGA PIERCE, UPI Health Business Correspondent [Excerpt]

 

Stefanie Pelkey described the ordeal of her husband Michael, who began displaying symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after he returned from fighting in Iraq.

 

He had trouble accessing military mental health services, and his officers and wife -- who was also in the army -- did not realize the severity of his symptoms.

 

He ultimately committed suicide by shooting himself in the chest, leaving behind his wife and a baby son.

 

After her husband's death, Pelkey said she had trouble accessing benefits because her husband had not been diagnosed with PTSD by an official military psychiatrist.

 

 

IRAQ WAR REPORTS

 

 

U.S. Marine Killed In Anbar

 

Apr 1, 2006 By QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA, The Associated Press

 

The U.S. command said a Marine was killed Friday during combat operations in Anbar province west of the capital.

 

The Marine's death brought to at least 2,328 the number of members of the U.S. military who have died since the Iraq war started in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

 

Soldier With Ties To Valley Dies

 

March 23, 2006 By PAT MUIR, YAKIMA HERALD-REPUBLIC

 

A soldier with family members and a fiancee in the Yakima Valley died in Iraq on Saturday, killed by enemy fire during a combat mission.

 

Army Ranger Ricardo Barraza, 24, attended high school and lived in Shafter, Calif., but has a brother and sister in Sunnyside and was engaged to a Yakima woman, according to an Army news release.

 

Barraza, who graduated from Shafter High School and enlisted in 1999, was heavily decorated during three deployments in Afghanistan and three in Iraq as a member of the 2nd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment. He was awarded the Purple Heart posthumously.

 

News of his death hit the town of Shafter hard.

 

"It was the topic of conversation at the City Council meeting last night," Shafter police Chief John Zrofsky said.  "It was the topic of conversation at the high school this morning.  It was the topic of conversation at the Kiwanis meeting at lunch."

 

The town of about 14,000 knew Barraza as the three-sport athlete who became a local hero for his touchdowns against archrival Garces Memorial High School, said Zrofsky, who has functioned as a news liaison for the Barraza family in Shafter.

 

They learned of the death Sunday. Barraza was close with his family, said Arlie Smith, who coached Barraza during his freshman football season at Shafter. Smith said the young man was widely respected for rising from a poor neighborhood to become a solid citizen.

 

"He was very dedicated to his mom, and I know he sent most of his money home to her," Smith said.

 

Barraza is survived by his parents, Francisco and Nina Barraza, and sisters, Amanda and Rachael, of Shafter; his fiancee, Maghan K. Herrington of Yakima; a sister, Jamie Barraza of Sunnyside; and a brother, Frankie Barraza of Sunnyside.

 

He is the seventh soldier or Marine killed in Iraq who lived in or had ties to the Yakima Valley.

 

Yusufiya Resistance Shoots Down Apache:

“No Sign Of Survivors”

 

4.1.06 CNN & By Mariam Karouny, Reuters &

 

A U.S. military helicopter crashed Saturday southwest of Baghdad, the military said in a statement.

 

"The status of the crew is unknown," the brief statement said.

 

Residents saw a two-seater Apache gunship take fire and crash.

 

Officials said the helicopter was on a "combat air patrol" and came down at about 5:30 p.m. (9:30 a.m. ET).

 

A militant group said it shot down a helicopter in the same area and residents said they heard gunfire.

 

In an Internet posting, a group calling itself the Rashedeen Army said it had shot down a U.S. helicopter near the town of Yusufiya, an area that sees considerable Sunni insurgent activity just southwest of the capital.

 

"The lions of Islam from the Rashedeen Army succeeded in downing a helicopter that belongs to the U.S. occupation forces in the Yusufiya district," the little known group said in a statement posted on a Web site often used by militants.

 

The posting came some time before the military statement.

 

A local government official in Yusufiya said an Apache helicopter, which carry a crew of two, was shot at and came down between Yusufiya and Falluja.

 

Residents in Yusufiya said they heard shooting in the area at the time, shortly before dusk.

 

Others said they saw smoke coming from the wreckage and no sign of survivors.

 

U.S. Casualties Drop As Offensive Action Cut Back;

But Ongoing High Level Of Resistance Attacks On Collaborators “Worrisome,” U.S. Official Says

 

 

April 2, 2006 By EDWARD WONG and KIRK SEMPLE, The New York Times Company

 

American commanders have decreased the number of their patrols and have tried to push the Iraqi security forces into a more visible role.

 

That shift, along with improved armor and bomb detection, may partly explain the drop in casualties.

 

Last October, 96 American troops died.  That number has decreased every month since then, but fell most sharply between February and March — to 29 in March from 55 in February.

 

A senior Pentagon official said that attacks on Americans, Iraqi forces and Iraqi civilians had remained at about 600 per week since last September but that the focus of the attacks have changed. In September, 82 percent of attacks were against American-led forces and 18 percent against Iraqis; in February, 65 percent were against the foreigners and 35 percent against Iraqis.

 

Top American officials are concerned that despite the growing number of trained and equipped Iraqi security forces being fielded, and the large number of insurgents killed or captured in the past six months, the number of overall attacks has not declined, the Defense Department official said.

 

"It should be worrisome to us that it's still at the same level," said the official, who was not authorized to speak publicly on the trend.

 

"With the number of operations that are occurring and the number of people we are detaining growing, and truly with the number of tactical successes that we're having, you would expect to see a reduction in the trend."

 

“They Don't Have Horses Either So It Comes Out Even”

 

From: Don Bacon smedleybutlersociety@msn.com

To: GI Special

Sent: April 01, 2006

Subject: Convoy story

 

I had a different take on the convoy story:

 

Convoys now being completely stopped by occupation resistance.

 

Convoy troops will now have to stand and fight when attacked in Iraq.

 

Convoy personnel in Iraq are being forced to change tactics because increased resistance is stopping convoys and rendering them unable to continue.  

 

U.S. soldiers will now have to stand and fight instead of shooting and pressing on when their convoys are attacked and stopped on Iraqi roads

 

"They know our reactions to certain things. Two years ago, they would never try and stop us," one trooper said. "But now IEDs (improvised explosive devices) are becoming more prevalent on the battlefield, and they are doing anything they can to try and stop the convoys.

 

“So what we are trying to do is plan for any type of contingency or scenario that insurgents might throw at us. 

 

“The objective is not to chase them down.  Just protect yourself and neutralize the threat that is immediate to your convoy."

 

"Unfortunately because we're on a highway we can't circle the trucks against these savages," another trooper reportedly said, "but they don't have horses either so it comes out even."

 

THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO COMPREHENSIBLE REASON TO BE IN THIS EXTREMELY HIGH RISK LOCATION AT THIS TIME, EXCEPT THAT A CROOKED POLITICIAN WHO LIVES IN THE WHITE HOUSE WANTS YOU THERE, SO HE WILL LOOK GOOD.

That is not a good enough reason.

A U.S. soldier facing angry Iraqi citizens condemning the occupation in Hilla, Iraq, March 19, 2006.  (Thaier al-Sudani/Reuters)

 

 

AFGHANISTAN WAR REPORTS

 

 

Occupation Command Airbase Hit By Repeated Rocket Attacks:

Two Canadian Soldiers Wounded

 

March 31, 2006 By MURRAY BREWSTER, The London Free Press & Robert Birsel, Reuters

 

Canadian troops came under fire early today as three loud explosions shook Kandahar airfield.

 

The blasts, which occurred shortly after 3 a.m. local time, were believed to have been caused by rockets, said a statement from the Defence Department in Ottawa.

 

The attack also injured a Canadian soldier, whose injuries were not considered life-threatening.

 

The explosions sounded louder and sharper than the ones Tuesday, when three rockets hit a remote area of the sprawling airfield.

 

The blasts were followed by an air raid siren, which sent everyone scrambling for their nearest concrete shelter, hundreds of which are strategically placed all over this sprawling U.S.-run facility.

 

Most of the Canadian contingent of about 2,200 soldiers is based at the air strip.

 

Shortly after the blasts, U.S. attack helicopters criss-crossed the base and swept the perimeter, looking for any sign of who might have launched the attack on the base.

 

Several armoured vehicles rumbled along the dusty roadways of the desert station, followed by the occasional foot patrol by camouflage-clad troops.  The heightened vigilance continued until well after dawn.

 

A Canadian soldier was wounded on Thursday when a car-bomber attacked a Canadian patrol in Kandahar city.

 

Nearly 60 Americans were killed in Afghan fighting last year, the worst for U.S. forces since they invaded in 2001 to oust the Taliban from power.  Eleven Canadian soldiers and a diplomat have been killed and 36 soldiers wounded.

 

Resistance Controls 3 Villages After Clashes Kill Six

 

April, 2006 Arab News

 

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan, 1 April 2006

 

Taleban insurgents took control of three villages in southern Afghanistan after security forces retreated following a battle in which six militants were killed, an official said.

 

Taleban attacked a police post in Kajaki district of volatile Helmand province at around noon, sparking the deadly battle, deputy provincial governor Mohammad Amir Akhund said. “In the couple-of-hours exchange of fire, six Taleban were killed and three were wounded,” Akhund said.

 

“Taleban have control of three villages in the district now.  The government forces have not started any operation in these three villages so far,” he said.

 

Helmand is one of the provinces worst affected by attacks blamed on a Taleban-led insurgency.

 

 

TROOP NEWS

 

 

After First Deployment, They Don’t Give A Shit About Your Family

 

March 30, 2006 Mideast Stars and Stripes

 

Families of troops facing a second or third deployment are less likely to receive support services they need than during the first tour of duty, a new survey of military families found.

 

 

IRAQ RESISTANCE ROUNDUP

 

 

Sunni, Shiite, Christian, Kurdish Iraqi Religious Leaders Agree:

“Any Military Action Against An Occupying Force Is A Legitimate Act”

Just Like The USA In 1776

 

[Thanks to Don Bacon, The Smedley Butler Society, for sending this in.]

 

 

March 31, 2006 Tod Robberson, The Dallas Morning News

 

LONDON:  Two years after U.S. authorities ceremoniously declared Iraq to be sovereign again, top religious leaders say Iraqis still don't govern themselves, remain under military occupation and have a right to fight foreign troops.

 

Their statements, made at the conclusion of a peace conference in London on Tuesday, provided a stamp of approval from Iraq's most influential Sunni and Shiite Muslim clerics for their countrymen to step up attacks aimed at hastening the withdrawal of U.S., British and other troops.

 

Two Christian archbishops and ethnic Kurdish leaders, whose community has previously supported the foreign military presence, joined Jordan's Prince Hassan bin Talal in endorsing a communique underscoring the ''legitimate right'' of Iraqis to resist what they called the occupation.

 

The clerics were adamant in their interpretation of Iraqis' rights to resist.

 

Their call comes at a time when Shiite militants, like their Sunni counterparts, have engaged in armed confrontations with troops of the U.S. led coalition, including a raid on a Shiite mosque Sunday in which at least 17 Iraqis were killed.

 

''We are here to say that any military action against an occupying force is a legitimate act authorized under international law,'' said Sheik Majid al-Hafeed, a representative of the Ulmma Kurdish Union of Iraq.

 

''The occupation is something that everybody is calling for an end to,'' added Sayyid Salih al-Haydary, outgoing minister of Shiite religious affairs.

 

The remarks of the 16 religious leaders, both in individual statements and in the joint communique, suggested a growing feeling among Iraqis that the presence of foreign forces is adding to the country's instability.

 

Results of a poll in Iraq, conducted in January but released last week, showed that an overwhelming majority of Arab Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds believe the United States is planning to keep troops in Iraq permanently.

 

Most also believe the United States would refuse to leave regardless of whether the Iraqi government requested it.  The poll was sponsored by the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland.

 

Sheik al-Hafeed and others took issue with Western characterizations of attacks on coalition troops as terrorism, citing the U.S. war of independence from Britain as one example of citizens taking up arms to eject foreign occupiers.

 

Rather than condemn such a struggle, the sheik quipped, ''Americans celebrate it as the Fourth of July, Independence Day.''

 

Sheik Ahmad Abdulgafour al-Samarai, minister of Sunni religious affairs in the outgoing government, agreed, saying that the definition of terrorism included not only the kidnapping and killing of noncombatants by guerrilla groups, ''but when the occupation forces kill (civilians), this also is terrorism.''

 

Shia?  Sunni? Christian?

Who Gives A Shit?

Iraqis Join Forces To Fight Occupation Death Squads;

“If The Militias Enter The Neighborhood, The Whole Of Azamiyah Will Erupt”

 

March 31,2006 MARIAM FAM, Associated Press

 

In the Jihad area of Baghdad, Jawad Kadhim oversees a 25-member neighborhood watch group that he said includes Shiites, Sunnis and Christians.  Each family pays the group about $6.50 a month.

 

Kadhim said the group came together after the Samarra bombing spawned assassinations in his neighborhood.

 

"Please don't ask me if I am a Shiite or a Sunni.  We don't have such distinctions," Kadhim said, though he earlier said he was a Shiite and a former member of the Iraqi army.

 

When a Sunni mosque in Jihad was attacked by men "in commando uniforms" after the Samarra bombing, Shiites and Sunnis repelled the assailants, Kadhim said.

 

Privately, police say they generally avoid confrontations with neighborhood watch groups as long as the men keep away from main streets.

 

In Azamiyah, Abdul Wahab said he conceals his weapon when an American patrol passes by.

 

His team started with 10 men, but now has more than 100, he said.  Many of them don't get paid, he added.

 

So why don't Azamiyah residents let the army guard the neighborhood?

 

"The army cannot control the situation.  If they had the ability, they would have controlled the situation in the mosques that were burnt down," argued Nateq Ibrahim, a 42-year-old fruit vendor who joined the Azamiyah group along with two brothers.

 

"This left me very angry," Ibrahim said of the attacks on Sunnis mosques.

 

He said his anger was not directed at all Shiites, only at those who attack Sunnis.

 

"We have Shiite families in Azamiyah, and we have no problems with them.  We protect them too."

 

But he warned that things could get ugly if Azamiyah came under attack.

 

"Now, we're just this group of volunteers," he said. "But if the militias enter the neighborhood, the whole of Azamiyah will erupt."

 

Assorted Resistance Action

 

April. 1 (Xinhua) & Sameer N. Yacoub, Associated Press & CNN

 

A roadside bomb hit a police patrol on the highway in eastern Baghdad on Saturday, wounding four policemen, an Interior Ministry source told Xinhua.

 

A police vehicle was also damaged in the blast, the source said on condition of anonymity.

 

South of Baqouba, an Iraqi army sergeant major was killed after his patrol surprised a group of suspected insurgents trying to steal a dump truck, the U.S. military said.

 

Elsewhere in Iraq, guerrillas in three cars killed a Shiite tribal chief and four male relatives near Balad Ruz as they drove home from a funeral, according to a Diyala province Joint Coordination Center official.

 

One of the family members was a police officer with the Baquba intelligence service.

 

 

 

FORWARD OBSERVATIONS

 

 

 

From: Richard Hastie

To: GI Special

Sent: March 28, 2006

 

Vietnam Veteran arrested at White House for civil disobedience on September 26, 2005.

 

The number of Iraqi children who will perish from both Iraq Wars will be unfathomable.

 

American tax dollars will have paid for it all.

 

Mike Hastie

Vietnam Veteran

 

 

 

“Off To The Devil At Last!”

 

MILITARIZED STREETS is a fact-based novel banned by the Japanese imperial government in 1930, and censored by the US occupation authorities in 1945.

 

It has been fully translated by Zeljko Cipris from the Japanese in D. Kuroshima, A Flock of Swirling Crows & Other Proletarian Writings, published by the University of Hawaii Press, 2005.

 

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

 

The scene: Tsinan (Jinan), China

 

Time: spring 1928, during a Japanese military intervention

 

Author: Kuroshima (1898-1943), once a soldier in Japan’s imperial army, lifelong antimilitarist and anti-imperialist

 

 

From Chapter 28

 

Slaughter and plunder are inseparable from armies and wars.

 

Whenever a war is waged, looting, robbery, and murder are invariably committed.

 

Depending on their merits, such events are either reported with exaggeration or, conversely, passed over in silence.

 

On this day, fourteen settlers were massacred, counting the nine disinterred two days later. Japan’s bourgeois press gave the number as two hundred and eighty.

 

The newspapers wrote that women had been stripped naked, treated with unspeakable savagery, and subsequently butchered.  Young girls had had stakes thrust into their vaginas, arms broken by clubs, and eyes gouged out.  

 

This is what the papers wrote. The public was informed about a person whose skull was smashed before the correspondent’s very eyes, spilling the brains onto the dusty road.

 

Similar reports were printed concerning the looting.  

 

According to one survivor, not only were valuables and clothing stolen but floorboards, mats, and ceiling planks were ripped away and even elementary school textbooks carried off.  Gold chains, gold watches, two hundred forty yuan in coin and three hundred eighty in banknotes were pillaged as well.  This victim’s story was published.

 

Reading such accounts, no sane person could fail to detest the Southern Army.  No one in his right mind could fail to grow indignant and conclude that such vicious troops deserved to be annihilated.

 

So great was the power of sensational reportage.

 

The nation’s public opinion and animosity, the soldiers’ reckless courage and fury, are inevitably manufactured out of this sort of information.

 

(The spy) Yamazaki understood this.  And he utilized it.

 

On the third day he discovered mutilated corpses buried in a field northeast of the railway bridge on the Chin-p’u line.  The freshly raised mounds of earth had looked suspicious.

 

They were dug up.  A woman and two men lay within, giving off a powerful, sour stench. Six more bodies were hidden in the vicinity of a water tank just a short distance away. Their ears had been sliced off and the stomachs of some had been stuffed with stones making them swollen and hard.

 

Both in Shih-wang-tien and Kuan-i-chieh, many houses had been looted and vandalized beyond all recognition.  Attired in Chinese clothing, Yamazaki strolled about inspecting the ruins.  This must be made known, he thought.  To the soldiers, to the settlers, and to the people back home.

 

Thanks to his professional sense, he fully understood what would happen when this information was broadcast.

 

This man was well aware of the enormous effects of inflating the number of victims from fourteen to two hundred and eighty.

 

A war cannot be prosecuted without guiding a nation’s people into a state of excitement and frenzy.  The enemy must be advertised as fiendishly evil.  The public’s sympathy must be aroused!  This he knew well...

 

It was essential to inform the soldiers, the refugees, and the public back home about the settlers’ pillaged houses, the dead woman with her ears sliced off, the dead men with their stomachs packed with stones.  

 

That is what he was thinking.  It was essential to tell the entire world!

 

He emerged before the headquarters.

 

“Halt!”

 

The sentry’s voice did not enter his ears.

 

“Halt!”

 

He walked on absorbed in thought.

 

Since before the withdrawal of the Northern Army, that checkpoint had been heavily guarded and conducted rigorous body searches.

 

Even the warlord Sun Ch’uan-fang’s car had been ordered to stop.  Its owner had been dragged out.  His pockets had been searched.  “I am Sun Ch’uan-fang!”  The gold-braided balding old man had stamped on the ground with rage.  “I am Sun Ch’uan-fang! How dare you!”  

 

He could have been the supreme commander of the Soviet Red Army for all the sentry cared.  It made no difference to him.  He was only carrying out his duty. “Huh! Sun Ch’uan-fang, is it!  All I see is some unknown joker in a fancy gold-braided uniform!”

 

It was this sentry line Yamazaki was passing.  The sentries glared at the man who was dressed Chinese and looked Chinese.

 

“Halt!”

 

Forgetting his Chinese clothing, Yamazaki was reveling in the pleasure of being Japanese.  Dreamily he was imagining the storm of popular passion whipped up by the reports of atrocities. I will tell them! I will let them know!...  He was vaguely aware of a Chinese being challenged by sentries.  He assumed it had nothing to do with him.

 

“Halt!”

 

Still he noticed nothing.

 

There was a burst of rifle fire.

 

Yamazaki, five pistols and a bankbook registering eight thousand yen as close to his heart as ever, dropped on the spot.

 

Off to the devil at last!

 

[Thanks to the brother who sends in these selections.  To be continued.  T)

 

“Oppressed People Everywhere Have Lost A Comrade”

 

 

December 2005 Prison Legal News, by Paul Wright, Editor [Excerpt}

 

On December 8, 2005, long time Prison Legal News subscriber Richard Williams, 58, died in a federal prison in North Carolina.

 

Richard had spent over 20 years in prison as a prisoner of war who had dedicated his life to the struggle for justice and liberation.

 

Richard was convicted, as a member of the United Freedom Front, also known as the Ohio 7, of assorted armed actions against military and corporate targets that had supported apartheid in South Africa and US imperialism in Central America in the 1980’s.

 

After the September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Richard was among many political prisoners and prisoners of war held in US prisons who were arbitrarily placed in a control unit and abused despite not being linked or supportive of the Islamic Fundamentalism long supported by the US government.

 

While in segregation Richard’s health significantly deteriorated, and included at least one mild heart attack. (See the February, 2002, issue of PLN for more details.) 

 

Ultimately Richard died from untreated hepatitis C.

 

While a lot of media attention was focused on the state murder of Stanley Williams in California the same month, Richard Williams was just as surely killed by the government as Stanley was with medical neglect rather than lethal injection being the means of execution.

 

Unfortunately, Richard’s death received virtually no media attention and no celebrities pleaded for his life.

 

Unlike Stanley, Richard had dedicated his adult life to struggling for a just society and challenging the perpetrators of oppression.

 

And he was not repentant about having done so. Richard will be sorely missed by his friends, comrades and family members.

 

Oppressed people everywhere have lost a comrade.

 

Richard is one of some 100 or so political prisoners and prisoners of war being held in American prisons from leftist and nationalist struggles.

 

Many of these prisoners have been imprisoned for more than 3 decades, making them among the longest held political prisoners in the world.

 

 

 

OCCUPATION REPORT

 

 

2003: Sowing The Wind

2006: Reaping The Whirlwind

United States Army soldiers looking for weapons stop and search Iraqi citizens at gunpoint at a roadblock in Baghdad, May 31, 2003.  REUTERS/Aladin Abdel Naby

 

[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 charges 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?]

 

U.S. Commander Admits The Massacre At Mustafa Mosque Was Planned In Advance:

A “Little Reality Jab” For Al-Sadr

 

March 30, 2006 Kevin Whitelaw, U.S. News & World Report

 

The U.S. military was trying to send a "little reality jab" to radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr when American and Iraqi troops raided a Shiite community center and shrine [translation: mosque] over the weekend [and butchered over 20 unarmed Iraqis], says a top U.S. military official.

 

 

 

This Is Not A Satire:

Collaborator Primes Minister Complains Bush Interferes In Iraq Politics!

 

March 30, 2006 By EDWARD WONG, New York Times Company

 

BAGHDAD, Iraq:  Facing growing pressure from the Bush administration to step down, Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari of Iraq vigorously asserted his right to stay in office on Wednesday and warned the Americans against interfering in the country's political process.

 

WE DIDN'T LIBERATE YOU SO THAT YOU COULD DO WHATEVER YOU WANT

 

[Thanks to Don Bacon, The Smedley Butler Society, for sending this in.  He writes: WE DIDN'T LIBERATE YOU SO THAT YOU COULD DO WHATEVER YOU WANT.]

 

4.1.06 AFP

 

BAGHDAD (AFP)  The US military urged Iraqi leaders to come up with a concrete policy on militias if US forces' aim of establishing security and stability in the country was to be achieved.

 

"When you are putting a government together you cannot have extra armed groups out there," a high-ranking US officer in Baghdad told reporters, while declining to use the word "militias" specifically.

 

The official spoke at a background briefing and requested his name not be published. The issue of militias is of particular sensitivity because many people in the current government have connections to them.

 

"The government is going to have to get a policy to deal with this," he said, explaining that without one it was difficult to enforce security on Baghdad's streets.

 

How Bad Is It?

“They Are Nothing But A Gang Of Liars, Try To Spin A Civil War And A Huge Snafu Of Their Creating Into Progress”

 

30 March 2006 By William Fisher, Truthout Perspective [Excerpts]

 

There is also a not-nearly-large-enough cadre of contractors who don't make millions.

 

Most of them work for USAID - the much-maligned US Agency for International Development.

 

Here's the email he sent me this morning (slightly edited to protect identities):

 

"I just now talked to my security manager in Baghdad, and am left speechless.  He describes a complete breakdown of law and order.  We reviewed our staff list to determine each individual's circumstances.  One guy, Ahmed, has his brothers stay with him at night.  They take turns sleeping in case someone attempts to break into his home. Abdullah is the same.  He and his father alternate sleeping at night, three hours on and three hours off.  Walid and his family live in Sadr City where violence has once again brought tragedy to large numbers of families.

 

"On and on, one by one, we discussed all of our people.  All are scared.  None of these friends is specifically targeted, so there is nothing for us to do except hope that they do not become victims of random and senseless violence.  The most common words are death, kidnapping, injury and danger. Iraq, especially Baghdad, is not a country any more.  It is hell.

 

"I am beyond angry, and only feel a deep sadness.  The optimism we felt in 2003 and early 2004 has been replaced by despair and wretchedness - there is no longer even a thread of hope to hang onto.

 

"In early 2005, after the first election, we thought maybe there was a future.  I made several trips to Baghdad, to meet with USAID and one of the government ministers. While my movements were proscribed, I managed to go out to lunch a few times, though mostly I stayed in the minister's house.

 

Now, even that bit of travel would be out of the question.

 

"The outrage of the Bush Team blaming the media for imbalanced reporting is unconscionable.  They are nothing but a gang of liars, try to spin a civil war and a huge snafu of their creating into progress.  And while some in the media are starting to acquire a hit of courage, thank God we have Helen Thomas, who will continue to pound away.

 

"Exactly why did we go to war?  And why did we not fight to win it?  I can only shake my head."

 

Mosul Slips Out Of Control

“We Are Not Leaving The Base In Daytime Because We Know Other Bombers Are Waiting For Us”

 

1 April 2006 By Patrick Cockburn in Mosul, The Independent (UK) [Excerpts]

 

When the 3,000 men of the mainly Kurdish 3rd Brigade of the 2nd Division of the Iraqi Army go on patrol it is at night, after the rigorously enforced curfew starts at 8pm.

 

Their vehicles, bristling with heavy machine guns, race through the empty streets of the city, splashing through pools of sewage, always trying to take different routes to avoid roadside bombs.

 

"The government cannot control the city," said Hamid Effendi, an experienced ex-soldier who is Minister for Peshmerga Affairs in the Kurdistan Regional Government.

 

"The Iraqi Army is only a small force in Mosul, the Americans do not leave their bases much and some of the police are connected to the terrorists."

 

"We are not leaving the base in daytime because we know other bombers are waiting for us," said a soldier at a base near Mosul's city centre.

 

General Muthafar Deirky, the ebullient commander of the 3rd Brigade, is more confident about the government's grip the city.

 

He has been stationed there since 11 November 2004 when, in one of the least publicised disasters of the US occupation of Iraq, insurgents captured the city as the police and army deserted en masse.  Some 11,000 weapons and vehicles worth $40m \ were lost.

 

"The Americans are now just one more of the tribes of Mosul," said one Arab source alleging that the CIA got all its information from Kurdish intelligence.

 

Even The Collaborator Troops Understand The Real World

 

Mar 30, 2006 Steve Negus, Financial Times

 

US officers say the process of building up troop capabilities will be a long one but that ultimately Iraqi soldiers should have an advantage over foreign troops in an intelligence-driven campaign by their ability to interact with the population.

 

This unit, however, has little trust in the people of Hit: "they fear us and we fear them," one says; and wonder how they can be expected to find an enemy that even the Americans have trouble locating.