GI SPECIAL 2#B84
198 Troops Wounded
Last Week
Oct. 5, 2004 The Associated
Press
The number of U.S.
troops wounded in Iraq increased by 198 over the past week, raising
the total since the war began in March 2003 to 7,730, the Pentagon
said Tuesday. [That works out to over 10,000 per year.]
That is within the range of weekly
increases reported over the past two months, which have varied from
about 110 to 226 in one of the most intense periods of insurgent
violence this year.
IRAQ
WAR REPORTS:
Belmont
County Soldier Killed
October 6, 2004 Rick Terry, NEWS 9
The phone call
every military family dreads came into the Morgan family home in
Maynard early Tuesday morning.
From a Department of Defense
spokesman, Diana learned her husband, Sgt. Richard Morgan, of the
660th Transportation Unit of Cadiz, was killed by a land mine in
Iraq. Within hours, more than a dozen family members had joined
Diana to offer grief and comfort.
Sgt. Rick Morgan was 38 years old. He
met Diana while he was stationed in Germany almost 20 years ago. They
married there and celebrated their 16th wedding anniversary, as well
as Diana's birthday, while he was home two weeks ago.
It's a visit the
family now views as a mixed blessing.
In an exclusive interview, Morgan's
sisters, Bonita Girty and Anita Gillespie tell NEWS 9 their
heartache is profound, but their pride in their brother equally
overwhelming.
Morgan was essentially retired as a
reservist when the war in Iraq began, and he re-enlisted with a
promotion to Sergeant. He was their friend and family stalwart.
While stationed overseas, Morgan would frequently keep several
internet channels open at once, to stay in touch with as many
relatives as possible. If he was scared, Bonita says he never told
his sisters or anyone else.
Morgan could never discuss the secret nature of his missions,
but believed thoroughly in the war and in what he was doing.
Says Bonita, "You
really don't think about it until it happens to you. You don't
understand until it hits home, and when it hits it hits hard." Anita
agrees, "You can't ever get over a loss like this... We thank God we
had him as long as we did, because we just saw him, and we hadn't
seen him since last Christmas."
Fighting In Babil
Province
06-10-2004 Al Bawaba & By Alexandra
Zavis, Associated Press
“The Americans
want to stop the resistance which they call terrorism and this is
wrong. In fact is it is legitimate reaction to the occupation”
Resistance fighters
blew up two bridges in a bid to hinder troop movement as U.S. and
Iraqi forces sealed off roads to an area south of Baghdad.
More than 3,000 U.S. and Iraqi forces
on Tuesday launched a major operation to retake control of Babil
province.
On Wednesday, U.S. soldiers and Iraqi
National Guardsmen were sealing off the roads leading to Qasir town
in the Youssifiyah area, preventing anybody from going in or out.
Residents said two
explosions one a car bomb another a roadside bomb hit two bridges in
the area Wednesday.
“The U.S.
military operation is unjustified and most of the arrests are
random and it will increase the hostilities in the area,” Mohammed
Fadhil, the 20-year-old owner of a Youssifiyah grocery shop said.
“The Americans want to stop the resistance which they call
terrorism and this is wrong. In fact is it is legitimate reaction
to the occupation”
Against Countrywide
Rebellion, Capture of Samarra A Bloody, But Useless, Gesture
October 6, 2004 By PATRICK COCKBURN,
CounterPunch
Capturing cities
like Samarra might be a sign of progress if the US were combating
isolated bands of insurgents, but against a countrywide rebellion
it is a bloody, but largely useless, gesture.
American generals in Iraq triumphantly
announced at the weekend that they had successfully taken over
Samarra and killed 125 insurgents. They
failed to mention that this is the third time they have captured
this particular city on the Tigris river north of Baghdad in the
past 18 months.
The campaign to eliminate the no-go
areas under rebel control in Iraq is getting into full swing.
Fallujah is being bombed every night and may soon be subjected to
ground assault. Najaf was recaptured from Shia militiamen in August
and much of the city is in ruins.
The current US military campaign is
very much geared to getting President George Bush reelected to the
White House in November. The aim
of the bombing is to prove to American voters that their army is on
the offensive, but without substantially increasing US casualties.
The situation on the ground in Iraq is
far worse than what is portrayed by the media. Ironically, this is
because it is now so dangerous
for journalists and television crews to leave their heavily guarded
hotels in Baghdad that they cannot refute claims by the American and
British governments that much of Iraq is safe.
Nothing could be
more untrue. I have spent most of the past year-and-a-half
travelling in Iraq, and I have never known it so bad. The roads
all around Baghdad are cut by insurgents. At Mahmoudiyah, just
south of the capital, rebels in black masks felt confident enough
last week to establish a checkpoint on the main road to Najaf.
In Baghdad, US
planes regularly bomb Sadr City, home to two million out of the
capital's five million people. Haifa Street, a resistance bastion
400 yards from the Green Zone where American generals give
relentlessly upbeat briefings, can only be entered by US heavy
armour supported by helicopters.
The creation of the no-go zones around
Baghdad was largely the consequence of the way in which US strategy
is dictated by the electoral needs of President Bush. The US marine
commander in charge of western Iraq in April says it was against his
advice that Fallujah was first besieged on orders from above. The
siege enraged the Sunni Arab community in Iraq. The marine attack
was then called off after a few days, again apparently on orders
from the White House because it did not want Iraq leading the
television news night after night.
The conquest of cities like Fallujah,
Ramadi, Samarra and Baquba will not end the insurrection. In recent
months, there have been more attacks on US troops and Iraqi security
forces elsewhere in Iraq than in the original centres of the
rebellion.
In Mosul, the
northern capital, the Iraqi police even contribute part of their
salary to the resistance.
The upsurge in
rebel attacks is being portrayed in London and Washington as an
attempt to sabotage the Iraqi elections in January. There is no
reason to think that the impending polls in Iraq have any connection
with the increasing violence. The insurrection is spreading each
month under its own momentum. It does so because the dominant fact
in Iraqi politics is the overwhelming unpopularity of the US
occupation.
One of the last
opinion polls taken by the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority
this summer showed that just 2 per cent of Iraqi Arabs (Kurds were
not included) supported the occupation. There is nothing surprising
in this. How many foreign occupations are popular?
The Iraqi Sunni and Shia communities
may have their differences, as do the Islamic militants and
nationalists, but they hate the US army more than they hate each
other. One Shia leader told me
how in his city, Kerbala, the Shia radical Muqtada Sadr is deeply
unpopular. But when a US helicopter dropped leaflets in Arabic
denouncing him, local people rushed out and burned them. They would
not be told by a foreign invader what to think about one of their
own.
If an election is held in January, it
will not end the fighting. If the Sunni Muslims do not take part,
but the Shia and Kurds do, then Iraq will be even more divided. A
great number of Iraqis also believes that you simply cannot have a
free and fair election with 138,000 US troops in the country.
The system of
voting has also been skewed towards producing a photocopy of the
interim government and the parties of former exiles which compose
it. A voter will cast his ballot for a central
list of parties. The parties will then be allocated seats in a
legislative assembly proportionate to their percentage of the
overall vote.
The problem is that the Iraqi
political parties are imported and are generally unpopular. Only the
Kurdish parties have real roots. The Shia parties will come
together--possibly including Muqtada Sadr--and Iyad Allawi, the
prime minister, will ally himself with the Kurds. Many local
leaders will not stand.
Any Iraqi politician who wants a
long-term future in his country will have to demonstrate that he is
playing a role in ending the US occupation. Those who do not will
end up in exile or worse.
Capturing cities
like Samarra might be a sign of progress if the US were combating
isolated bands of insurgents, but against a countrywide rebellion it
is a bloody, but largely useless, gesture.
MORE ON SAMARRA
Batiste Boasts And
Babbles Bullshit;
Clueless As To What
The War Is About
October 06, 2004, Matthew Cox, Army
Times staff writer
Insurgents occupied “hundreds” of
private homes and religious sites, said Maj. Gen. John R.S. Batiste,
commander of the 1st Infantry Division. “It was a violent
engagement.”
“They were no match for U.S. and Iraqi
forces. The bulk of the fighting was over in eight hours.
[The bad news for
this blowhards’ troops is that the bulk
of the fighting is just getting started. He knows nothing about
guerrilla war, a deadly failing in a commander in the middle of
one. The resistance just fades away rather than
stand and fight overwhelming force, and comes back later,
twice as strong, at a time and place of their choosing. Batiste is
clueless. As the article above points out, this is the
third time Samarra has
been “taken”, and every time the resistance grows stronger.]
NEED SOME TRUTH? CHECK
OUT TRAVELING SOLDIER
Telling the truth
- about the occupation, the cuts to veterans’ benefits, or the
dangers of depleted uranium - is the first reason Traveling
Soldier is necessary. But we want to do more than tell the truth;
we want to report on the resistance - whether it's in the streets
of Baghdad, New York, or inside the armed forces. Our goal is for
Traveling Soldier to become the thread that ties working-class
people inside the armed services together. We want this newsletter
to be a weapon to help you organize resistance within the armed
forces. If you like what you've read, we hope that you'll join
with us in building a network of active duty organizers.
http://www.traveling-soldier.org/
And join with Iraq War
vets in the call to end the occupation and bring our troops home
now! (www.ivaw.net)
Amateur Hour In
Latifiyah;
Silly Reserve
Captain Says “We’re Here To Stay”
Oct. 06, 2004 BY RICK JERVIS, KRT
Information Services
LATIFIYAH, Iraq
- (KRT) - There is no traffic in Latifiyah.
No cars, chickens, pigs, people or
roadside cigarette stands - a staple in most Iraqi towns. Shops are
shuttered, homes are closed and quiet, and, most disturbing to at
least one Marine charged with patrolling this rural town 20 miles
south of Baghdad, there are no signs of children.
"They play inside," said Sgt. Yousif
Almoosawi, a platoon sergeant with the 2nd Battalion, 24th Marine
Regiment, as he pointed his M-16 assault rifle down another empty
alley. "Not a good sign."
The streets around
Latifiyah have become so laced with roadside bombs - known in
military parlance as improvised explosive devices, or IEDs - that
military officials here call it the "IED capital of Iraq."
To stress that
point, insurgents blew up the police station two weeks ago.
"Right now, Latifiyah is more
dangerous than Fallujah," said Sgt. Devon Hawkins, another platoon
sergeant with the 2nd Battalion, 24th Marines.
"Every day we have an IED.
Everyday someone who is seen working with Americans gets killed
here. It's complete lawlessness." [Right. Just like Boston was
completely lawless in 1776, from the British point of view.]
Since the U.S. military closed nearby
Highway 1, Highway 8 has become the main thoroughfare between
Baghdad and the southern cities of Najaf, Nasiriyah and Basra. The
Iraqi National Guard has permanent stations in Mahmoudiya and
Iskandariyah. But in between,
towns on Highway 8 like Latifiyah have been overrun by insurgents,
military officials said.
Their weapon of choice: IEDs. The
homemade devices incorporate 81 mm mortar shells, 130 mm or 155 mm
artillery rounds or 100-pound aerial bombs, many times daisy-chained
together and wired to a stand by the side of the road, where a
triggerman waits for passing convoys, officials said.
One recent Saturday night, a Marine
Mobile Strike Team discovered an IED made of 15 130 mm artillery
shells daisy-chained by the side of Highway 8, officials said.
Later that night, a
six-vehicle convoy was returning from a mission in central Latifiyah
when an IED exploded under one of the armored Humvees. The bomb
disintegrated the Humvee's front end. Its transmission and engine
parts rained down on the vehicles behind it, and the grenade
launcher mounted on its roof was found in a field 30 feet away,
according to a witness.
All five passengers survived, saved by
the Humvee's armor. With two weeks in Iraq, three members from the
2nd Battalion, 24th Marines have been recommended for Purple Hearts.
Sgt. Eliasard Alcauter, a vehicle
commander, was in the back seat.
"I saw a bright flash but didn't even
hear the bang," said Alcauter, who suffered a mild back sprain.
"Next thing I know, it was like I was riding a rodeo horse. The
vehicle was bouncing up and down. It was crazy."
The insurgents
probably are using weapons and ammunition looted from the nearby
Qa-Qaa complex, a 3-mile by 3-mile weapons-storage facility about 25
miles southwest of Baghdad, said Maj. Brian Neil,
operations officer for the 2nd Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment, which
initially patrolled the area.
The facility was bombed during last
year's invasion and then left unguarded, Neil said.
"There's definitely no shortage of
weapons around here," he said.
The task to secure Latifiyah had
belonged to the 2nd Battalion, 2nd Marines, which went after
insurgents with large offensives and tactical cordon-and-search
missions. Earlier this month
that responsibility was handed to the 2nd Battalion, 24th Marines, a
unit with headquarters in Chicago comprising mainly reservists from
Illinois, Wisconsin and Iowa (slogan: "Mayhem from the Heartland").
The battalion of
Chicago police officers, Milwaukee students, mortgage brokers,
defense lawyers, sales representatives, nurses and engineers -
totaling more than 1,000 - could be useful as U.S.-led coalition
forces continue their shift from a military role to security and
reconstruction duties, military officials said. [It’s going to be
mayhem all right, when these weekend warriors go up against an armed
nation determined to be free. Only not like the brain-dead
“military officials” think. And when were “military officials” ever
known to think?]
The handover of a
hostile area to a new battalion, made up of many inexperienced
combatants, has its growing pains.
On Sept. 27, three
platoons took off from the base in Mahmoudiya with a predawn mission
to sweep through Latifiyah on foot patrols. But on the way there, a
Humvee ran off the road and into a ditch, a 7-ton truck nose-dived
into a canal and another Humvee lost a tire, said Capt. Tom Wotka,
the daytime battle captain. As four injured
Marines were evacuated, insurgents lobbed mortars at the truck
accident site, Wotka said. No one else was seriously injured, he
said.
"Operating as a battalion is something
we haven't done much of," Wotka said.
"The tactics of this are really simple. It's the actions that make
this complex." [We
got our very own General Patton here, full of deep wisdom.]
The day before, the battalion's Fox
Company launched a mission to look for IEDs along Highway 8. The
Marines motored down Highway 8, passing the charred carcasses of
more than 20 vehicles destroyed by IEDS - including an Opel car, a
Mercedes-Benz minivan and an 18-wheel truck - on a 2-mile stretch
through Latifiyah named "IED Highway" by Marines.
The convoy of vehicles stopped, 100
yards apart, diverting midday traffic to a dirt side road. Marines
jumped out and began searching the sides of the highway for
discolored mounds of dirt, ill-placed boxes or other signs of
roadside bombs.
After an hour
without finding any bombs, they were radioed instructions to find a
spare M-16 barrel lost by another unit in a residential section of
southern Latifiyah. [Promise: this is not satire.]
On their way there,
trying to alternate their routes to confuse the enemy, the convoy
sped on dirt roads along canals on the outskirts of the town - and
got lost. Then a Humvee got stuck in a ditch and needed help
getting out.
When they arrived, the Marines created
a defense cordon around the southern stretch of town while a team of
three Marines, led by Capt. Joel Northey, a platoon commander,
walked through Latifiyah's desolate streets, kicking through trash
piles, peering down alleys and
asking the rare resident on the street, through a translator,
whether they had seen any military equipment. They hadn't.
[Promise: this is not satire.]
The Marines, with their M-16s ready,
moved slowly and deliberately, securing corners before crossing
streets, scanning rooftops and peering over the fences of homes.
The spare barrel was never found. But
the stroll through town had another mission, Northey said. Marines
from the previous unit often had been shot at by snipers in the same
section of town.
"This is a way to
show them they're not going to chase us out with sporadic gunfire,"
Northey said. "We're here to stay."
[How silly can you get? No, you’re
not “here to stay.” The Iraqis are “here to stay,” so far for about
5,000 years. They’re going to kick your ass out, along with all the
rest of Bush’s occupation officers. It’s their country. This is
such a perfect example of the Imperial arrogance and stupidity that
has already lost the war.]
Resistance Shifts
Combat Tactics Against Occupation Forces;
Moving To Extended
Small Unit Attacks
3 October 2004:
This is Iraqi Resistance Point
Of View:
Translated and/or compiled by Muhammad
Abu Nasr, member editorial board The Free Arab Voice.
Assessment: Qualitative leap under
way in Iraqi Resistance operations, as US aggressor troops are
harried by over 90 Resistance attacks per day.
Correspondents for Mafkarat al-Islam
in Iraq believe that coming days will witness a qualitative change
in the operations being carried out by the Iraqi Resistance against
the occupation. The correspondents observed Resistance activity in
more than 50 regions of the country over the last week and noted a
marked escalation in Resistance attacks, bringing the total number
of operations up to about 87 per day.
The correspondents reported that the
operations that they personally witnessed, obtained accounts of from
eyewitnesses or otherwise learned of in the previous week were as
follows:
Saturday, 25 September 2004. 87
Resistance operations.
Sunday, 26 September 2004. 75
Resistance operations.
Monday, 27 September 2004. 81
Resistance operations.
Tuesday, 28 September 2004. 89
Resistance operations.
Wednesday, 29 September 2004. 90
Resistance operations.
Thursday, 30 September 2004. 92
Resistance operations.
Friday, 1 October 2004. 95 Resistance
operations.
The correspondents
also observed a clear strategic shift by the Resistance from hit and
run tactics to the tactics of relatively quick blows.
The new tactics
involve attacks that last from two to six hours each.
Car bombs are again being used as a
powerful and intimidating tactic. The bombing in al-Karmah west of
Baghdad was one good recent example of the Resistance’s new use of
that tactic with deadly and targeted effect. In that operation two
car bombs exploded on Sunday, 26 September at the headquarters of
the puppet so-called civil defense force when American occupation
forces were changing their guard and thus had a large number of
their forces exposed and in the open. Thirty-five US troops were
killed in that attack and eight Humvees, two troop transport
vehicles, and one Bradley armored vehicle destroyed.
In addition to
the new and more sophisticated tactics, the observers note greater
coordination between Resistance groups with different ideological
outlooks.
This can be seen in the way that they
time their attacks and in the issuance of joint communiqué’s. The
correspondents noted obvious coordination during the week among the
Resistance fighters operating in Baghdad’s Hayfa Street, in
ar-Ramadi, Samarraâ, Tal-afar, and Mosul.
Just in ar-Ramadi, for example, the
correspondents noted, six totally different organizations are in
full cooperation, each one defending the other.
In al-Anbar, the Resistance pursues
the tactic of wiping out the enemy, concentrating their forces to
totally annihilate small American or puppet patrols.
They attack small columns by
breaking them apart and then focusing on the smaller part to totally
wipe it out.
The
correspondents have noted that in the last 40 days there has been
a major change in the military strategy of the Resistance.
Observers attribute this to the
Resistance being able to draw on the expertise of a number of
specialists from the Army of the Republic of Iraq who have been able
to make adjustments to existing ordnance left over from before the
US occupation to make it more usable and more lethal in dealing with
the Americans in the type of warfare being waged in the country.
A number of
middle-range and short-range rockets have been upgraded with the
help of these specialists. The C5K, for example, has been modified
from an air to ground rocket for use on the ground or for
anti-aircraft purposes.
The correspondents believe that in
coming days there will be a qualitative leap in the Iraqi Resistance
operations as they escalate to a higher level of destructive
capacity.
Qa’Tim.
In al-Qa’Tim on the border with Syria,
Iraqi Resistance forces fired a C5K rocket shot and down a US
Chinook Helicopter, killing five US troops in the ar-Rabt area at
12:25pm Sunday afternoon local time.
Resistance forces used bombs and an
SBG9 to disable a Bradley armored vehicle and a Humvee at kilometer
160 in the al-Qa’Tim area at 9:30am Sunday morning. Two Humvees
were disabled in the cemetery area of al-Qa’Tim Sunday afternoon.
A massive Resistance car bomb attack
(with a blue Chevrolet Caprice) 15km from al-Qa’Tim left 15 US
troops dead and destroyed five Humves. An Iraqi man, woman, and
child who happened to be in the area were unfortunately also killed.
Resistance forces set fire to five US
military trucks carrying tanks in al-Qa’Tim in a raid on a column of
45 US vehicles on its way from Baghdad to al-Qa’Tim at 11Pm.
Each of the five trucks was carrying
an Abrams tank. The Resistance fighters returned safely
to base.
Monday, 4 October 2004.
Car bomber strikes
CIA headquarters in Baghdad.
The local correspondent of Mafkarat
al-Islam reported from Baghdad Monday morning that at 10am local
time an Iraqi Resistance martyrdom fighter attacked one of the
largest headquarters of the US Central Intelligence Agency (the CIA)
in Baghdad. The massive explosion occurred near Sa’dun Street, very
close to the ar-Rashid Hotel.
At least 3,000 US security employees
work out of the massive headquarters - a scale of operations that
strongly suggests that it is the main headquarters for the US state
intelligence agency in occupied Iraq.
US forces immediately
closed off all approaches to the scene of the attack, preventing the
Mafkarat al-Islam correspondent from assessing the extent of damage
or obtaining information on casualties directly. US aircraft,
however, could be seen landing and taking off from the street where
the attack took place, loading dead and wounded CIA personnel.
The American
Associated Press (AP) reported that the blast occurred at 9:45 and
that it targeted “a convoy of 4-wheel drive vehicles leaving a
complex of major hotels where foreign contractors and journalists
reside.”
In a later dispatch
posted at 1:40pm Mecca time, the Mafkarat al-Islam correspondent
presented the version of the incident that he had pieced together
from his sources. He wrote that a Resistance
fighter driving a 2-ton booby trapped Kia loaded with fruits and
vegetables blew up the vehicle at 10am local time.
The correspondent estimates that the
truck must have been loaded with 1.5 to 2 tons of explosive
material.
The target building, an old structure
formerly used by Iraqi military industry, has been taken over by the
CIA and surrounded by a huge concrete wall. Deployed around it are
watch points and numerous inspection stations. Large numbers of
American snipers are perched atop the building.
The Resistance
driver had to break through as much of that security cordon as
possible. The driver headed for the main gate at the moment that a
number of CIA-owned GMC vehicles were awaiting confirmation of their
identity and authorization to enter the facility. The Resistance
attacker drove in right after the US vehicles.
The attack totally destroyed the
facade of the building, causing parts of it to collapse. The number
of casualties inside is unknown, but the correspondent saw seven
Iraqi ambulances rushing to the scene from the direction of the
as-Sa’dun statue, as well as six American ambulances heading in from
the road to the Meridian Hotel. In addition two US Black Hawk
helicopters emblazoned with the Red Cross rushed to the scene of the
attack as well, in order to take away the dead and injured.
The correspondent also saw five
demolished civilian cars and the obvious damage that the powerful
explosion inflicted also on the walls of neighboring buildings.
After the attack, US snipers deployed
atop nearby buildings, the number of checkpoints increased and many
more US and Iraqi puppet forces were deployed in the area.
Nevertheless, at
10:25am two powerful Tariq rockets slammed into the ar-Rashid Hotel
in the same vicinity, according to the local correspondent of
Mafkarat al-Islam.
In a dispatch posted at 11:58pm Mecca
time the correspondent for Mafkarat al-Islam provided more details
on the attack. He reported that the car bomb attack on the CIA
headquarters killed 12 CIA agents.
The correspondent reported local
eyewitnesses as saying that the 12 were killed in three cars - two
of them GMC Suburbans and the third a Blazer. In
addition, five members of the Iraqi puppet so-called “National
guard” perished in the explosion. They had been stationed at the
first checkpoint. (The
correspondent explains that the US forces typically have a series of
check points outside their facilities, the first one being manned by
local Iraqi puppet forces, who are therefore the most exposed to
Resistance attack.)
The Resistance car bomb burst through
the first gate, following US cars, and then exploded at the inner
gate. The correspondent reported that the number of casualties at
the inner gate was unknown, but that the large number of ambulances
that showed up at the scene indicates a sizeable casualty figure.
Telephone
communications in Iraq shut down - both land lines and portable
telephones, according to Mafkarat al-Islam, which quoted an informed
source working in the field of telecommunications in the country.
The source told
Mafkarat al-Islam that later in the day, the order closing down all
telephone communications was rescinded for the northern regions of
the country, but that the shut-down was still in force in the
southern part of the country - which was known for having the worst
cell phone network in the country anyway, according to the
correspondent.
As a result of
these and other orders by the US occupation forces which are in the
midst of a campaign against Resistance strongholds, al-Fallujah, and
the districts of al-Karakh and Madinat as-Sadr in Baghdad are
without all telephone communication - landed or cellular - for the
third straight day.
The correspondent
notes that even though the lines have officially been again turned
on, users are still encountering severe difficulties in the use of
all telephones in the country.
TROOP NEWS
The Grief of
Baghdad
05 October 2004 By Evan Derkacz,
AlterNet
The painful
stories and pictures of some of the 16,000 American soldiers –
like Cpl. Tyson Johnson – wounded in Iraq might move Americans to
action. Maybe that's why we don't see them in the mainstream
media.
After having seen a couple of his
buddies turn up dead in a ditch during high school, Tyson Johnson
decided to leave his Prichard, Alabama home and make something of
himself "because I knew where my life was headed."
So he joined the
National Guard first, and then, for a bonus of $2999, he joined the
army.
Now 22, he's back
in Prichard, his life in ruins.
Tyson
Johnson (Big Picture)
Johnson's story is just one of many
from Nina Berman's powerful new book, "Purple
Hearts: Back from Iraq'' (Trolley Ltd.).
It contains short
testimonials and a photo essay illuminating one of the dark corners
of the war in Iraq: the stories and pictures of the permanently
wounded men and women home from the war. If the pumped-up "Army of
One" recruiting campaign is the "before" photo, "Purple Hearts" is
the "after."
Cpl. Johnson's photo in the book is
subtly disturbing; it creeps up on you. On a sunny Southern day, he
leans gently against a chain-link fence, eyes downcast. Baggy
basketball shorts sit low, Hanes underwear defiantly above the
waistline. His trim torso is a collection of scars, the largest of
which snakes from the bottom of the breastbone, diving into his
navel, disappearing finally into that exposed Hanes waistband.
Others emerge from his back; there's a patch covering something over
his heart; what appears to be the work of sprayed shrapnel across
his left side.
Despite the
message written on his body, it's his words that will haunt you:
"Well, uh, shrapnel down the back, shrapnel that came in and hit
my head, punctured my lungs. I broke both of my arms. I lost a
kidney. My intestines was messed up. They took an artery out of
my left leg and put it into this right arm. They pretty much took
my life. Pretty much."
He has trouble teaching his son how to
count on his hands because, "You can see my fingers is messed up."
Cpl. Tyson Johnson is 100
percent disabled, cannot support his family - and the National Guard
wants its bonus back.
"Purple Hearts'" succinct introduction
by Verlyn Klinkenborg, a meditation on the concept of the "hero"
since 9/11, paraphrases the stories within (though it serves as an
adequate surrogate for the silenced stories of all the American boys
and girls injured as a result of the war):
"Three of them were wounded in
firefights. One was delivering ice. Another walked off into the
desert on a bathroom break and stepped on a mine...The youngest of
them all was wounded by a suicide bomber. Two of the solders who
look the least damaged are blind, far more damaged than the camera
can record. One soldier whose limbs are intact and who appears
nearly normal is brain-damaged. A metal chunk from a bomb pierced
his brain and left him a stranger to his family."
On the same day that the "Purple
Hearts" exhibit opened at the Redux Gallery in New York City in
early September, a family in Geauga County, Ohio (perhaps the mother
of all battleground states), sent a huge message to President Bush -
literally.
Ken and Betty
Landrus, the parents of Staff Sgt. Sean Landrus, who was killed in
January, made an enormous sign which they held up from their front
yard for passersby - and eventually news cameras - to see. The sign
read: "Thanks Mr. Bush for the death of our son." The story was
reported by the local NBC affiliate, WKYC-TV.
Interesting that
during all its coverage of the war, the station hadn't bothered to
contact the family of a local casualty of the war, to report on what
it was like to have a child die in the war - to report on the
consequences of our nation's policies. They never
asked Staff Sgt. Landrus' widow and three kids what it was like
either, though his youngest child, having been born shortly before
Landrus left for Iraq, admittedly wouldn't have given a good
interview.
That's the lesson that the Pentagon
and the State Department took from Vietnam: The way to maintain
support for a war is to keep the pictures and stories of the dead
and the wounded from the American people.
William Saletan,
writing for Slate, believes that this is ultimately a failure of
leadership. Referring to last week's debate, he pointed out just
where Bush, despite himself, comes clean:
"Tonight he
scoffed, 'If I were to ever say, "This is the wrong war at the
wrong time at the wrong place," the troops would wonder, "How can
I follow this guy?"'
Exactly, Mr.
President. If you were ever to give them the correct assessment,
they would ask the correct question."
Boot-Camp Virus
Kills After Army Discontinued Prevention As
“Too Expensive”
"Top Priority"
Means 2 Year Wait For Vaccine
(Seattle Times, October 6, 2004, Pg.
1)
A deadly virus is
striking 1 in 10 recruits. Dr. William
Winkenwerder Jr., assistant secretary of defense for health affairs,
responding to a Seattle Times story detailing how
a vaccine had been abandoned in 1996
by the army because it was considered too expensive, said
he will push to distribute a new
oral vaccine by 2006,
calling the program his "top priority." [Fine. And every winter
and spring between now and then, sit this Winkenwerder, Jr. asshole
down in a chair, tie on some restrains, and inject his ass with a
batch of the real live virus, until he sees if he can move a little
faster to stop killing green troops in boot camp. We’ll find out
then what his priorities are.]
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
in Iraq, and information about other
social
protest
movements
here in the USA.
Send requests to address up top.
Greek Anti-War
Sailor Set Free
Dear friends,
On behalf of Stop the War Coalition
and Campaign Genoa 2001 we want to thank everybody for their amazing
and quick response to express solidarity and demand the immediate
release of Giorgos Monastiriotis, the sailor who denied to go to The
Gulf with Greek frigate NAVARINO during the starting of bombing of
Iraq by Bush and his allies.
He was captured before two weeks and
put by Navel court in prison for 3 years and 4 months!
Today, we managed
to challenge this imprisonment in the Naval court and we demanded
his immediate release. The Naval court decided to release him until
a final court will decide in future-no date was announced!
This is a great
victory of our strong international and Greek antiwar movement.
The international campaign just in few
days got an amazing response and in Greece a strong broad alliance
was builded with the participation of trade unions, artists,
intellectuals, academics, left parties etc.
We are now more confident that we are
winning. The neoliberal government of Kostas Karamanlis and his
hawks tried to revenge our strong antiwar movement that cancelled on
27th of August the visit of Colin Powel. They are now again
defeated.
We dedicate our
common victory to the forces of Iraqi resistance to occupation of
Iraq and the international antiwar movement!
We don not stop to build this campaign
since we don’t trust them.
So, please spread
the good news and keep on the solidarity!
In Solidarity,
Petros Constantinou, Campaign GENOA
2001-Greece
Yiannis Sifakakis, Stop the War
Coalition-Greece
Mobilized Guard,
Reserves Up 3,000 In Week
October 6, 2004 U.S. Department of
Defense News Release No. 997-04
This week, the Army and Marine Corps
announced an increase in the number of reservists on active duty in
support of the partial mobilization, while the Air Force and Navy
had a decrease. The net collective result is 3,269 more reservists
mobilized than last week.
6 Months Home,
Carson Troops Back To Bush’s Slaughterhouse Again
October 6, 2004 By Associated Press
FORT CARSON — Standing
in a cold drizzle, 250 soldiers wearing desert camouflage said
farewell Tuesday as they prepared to return to the war zone in Iraq.
They will be among the first of 7,000
troops from Fort Carson going back to Iraq over the coming months.
The post near Colorado Springs sent 12,000 troops there last year;
more than 40 were killed and more than 500 were wounded.
"I really have no issues about going
back," said 1st Lt. Clee Ceasar.
But Ceasar said his wife and his family were shocked that he was
returning so soon after coming home last spring.
"Mentally you have to be sharp. There
are things you have to look out for.
My biggest concern is roadside bombs," he said.
U.S.
Expands Probe Of Crooks Who Ran Air Force
(Los Angeles Times, October 6, 2004)
The Justice Department has begun
reviewing e-mail exchanges of three high-ranking government
officials in more fallout from the controversial $23-billion Air
Force plan to acquire aerial refueling tankers from Boeing, sources
said. Federal investigators are
looking at the possibility of conflict-of-interest violations by Air
Force Secretary James Roche, Air Force acquisition chief Marvin
Sambur and Robin Cleveland, associate director at the Office of
Management and Budget, according to the sources.
Spain
Cuts U.S. Troops From National Day Parade
(International Herald Tribune, October
6, 2004)
U.S. troops are no
longer welcome in Spain's national holiday parade now that
Washington and Madrid have fallen out over Iraq. Instead, French
soldiers have been invited to march in the Spanish capital on the
big day.
IRAQ
RESISTANCE ROUNDUP
Attack On
Occupation Guards Base Kills 16 In Anah
Oct. 6, 2004 Reuters News Service & By
Alexandra Zavis, Associated Press
BAGHDAD, Iraq -- A car
bomber killed 16 people at a National Guard center in western Iraq
today.
An Interior
Ministry official said the bomber targeted recruits for the
paramilitary force in the town of Anah, 260 km
(163 miles) northwest of Baghdad, on the main highway to Syria.
Local doctors said 16 people had been
killed and 24 wounded. Witnesses
said they saw a car hurtling towards the National Guard center on
the edge of town just before the explosion.
Al-Jazeera
television said the bomber exploded in front of a National Guard
garrison where people were lined up to volunteer for the force.
Four Occupation
Cops Wounded In Basra IED
Oct. 6, 2004 Reuters News Service
A roadside bomb killed a civilian and
wounded four policemen in the southern city of Basra.
FORWARD
OBSERVATIONS
No Oil For Blood;
How Iraq War Feeds
The Oil Crisis
10.4.05 Youssef M. Ibrahim.
Youssef M. Ibrahim, a former senior
Middle East correspondent for The New York Times and energy editor
of The Wall Street Journal, is managing director of a political
risk-assessment group.
DUBAI, United Arab
Emirates, October 6, 2004 — The costs and benefits of America's
occupation of Iraq vary, according to proponents and opponents,
except when it comes to oil exports.
The U.S.-led invasion has resulted
in the loss of an average of 2 million barrels a day of Iraqi oil
from world markets. That is a significant number with huge
consequences for economies around the globe.
Instead of rosy
promises by the neoconservatives of the Bush administration who
pushed for the invasion — partly on the premise that they would turn
it into America's private gasoline-pumping station — the contrary
has occurred.
The impact is slowly taking its toll
as the price of everything related to petroleum rises (from the food
on the supermarket shelves to the gasoline in your car to the
plastic chairs on your lawn).
The consequences have been evident in
the past few months. Oil prices stand at 20-year-high records with
no relief in sight. Indeed,
should the ongoing disruption of Iraqi oil exports be compounded
with an interruption of production elsewhere — Russia, Africa, Saudi
Arabia, Venezuela or any member of the Organization of Petroleum
Exporting Countries — we could be looking at prices far above $50 a
barrel, perhaps $60 or more. Indeed, the sky is the limit.
Iraq used to produce
close to 3.5 million barrels of oil per day under the rule of Saddam
Hussein.
It exported about 2.5 million barrels
daily within the now-defunct, United Nations-guided oil-for-food
program.
It produced another half a million
barrels for its own internal consumption to feed its now-looted and
destroyed refineries.
And it managed to "smuggle" about
300,000-500,000 barrels a day to Iran, Jordan, Syria and Turkey,
with the money going into Saddam's treasury.
The reason oil
prices have been hovering around $50 a barrel now is that most of
these Iraqi exports disappeared just as oil consumption began to
skyrocket around the world.
The International Energy Agency
reported that the global use of oil — about 81 million barrels every
24 hours — rose at least 1.3% and perhaps as much as 3% in the past
year. Consumption is being driven by new, voracious appetites in the
huge industrial machineries of China and India as well as in various
other economies on a fast-growth track.
Meanwhile, two huge Western oil lakes
— the North Sea shared by the United Kingdom and Norway, and
Alaska's oil fields — are beginning to run dry. And unrest in
Nigeria has threatened the considerable output there. Hence, the
decline in Iraqi oil production could not have come at a worse time.
In his most recent comments, Secretary
of State Colin Powell acknowledged that the insurgency in Iraq is
"getting worse."
The most immediate
impact is on Iraq's oil industry, which insurgents have targeted as
a way of opposing the U.S.-led occupation and hobbling the interim
government ahead of planned elections.
Rightly or wrongly,
the tactic is working.
Pipelines and oil terminals from the
northern fields near Kirkuk to the southern export terminals near
Basra are being blown up daily by various groups of insurgents.
At last count, the northern pipeline
that carries oil to the Turkish Mediterranean port of Ceyhan has
been blown up 37 times in 12 months. Terminals in the
south have been attacked at least 10 times, in effect shutting down
all exports of crude oil.
Iraq,
a country that sits on the world's second-largest oil reserves
after Saudi Arabia, finds itself in the humiliating position of
importing oil products such as gasoline, diesel and fuel oil. It
is only able to export an average of about 1 million to 1.3
million barrels of crude oil per day. And that is on good days,
when something is not ablaze.
What's worse is
that a large chunk of the oil revenues is not accounted for because
of graft, theft, mayhem and the near-total absence of transparency
within the transitional government of Prime Minister Ayad Allawi,
according to aid agencies, which say they cannot see where the money
is going.
Oil traders go
further. They say large amounts of oil are being stolen and smuggled
onto ships, with Iraqi officials and traders splitting the returns.
The Iraqi people and economy see no "trickle down" effect.
As for the
country's oil industry, once a proud mighty machinery of some 55,000
well-trained and highly disciplined technocrats, the situation is
catastrophic. Oil fields are deteriorating for lack of maintenance,
fires, accidents and lack of funds. Oil refineries that were looted
in the first week of the war have yet to be repaired.
To date, of the $18
billion in so-called reconstruction money allocated for Iraq by the
U.S. Congress, less than $1 billion has been disbursed for that
exact purpose, according to congressional-oversight reports and the
United Nations.
Oil and politics are a flammable
cocktail. That is exactly where we are in Iraq. The real worry is
that the virus may very well be moving next door to other
oil-producing countries at a time when, basically, the world is
running on empty .
OCCUPATION REPORT
6,000 Prisoners
Held Without Trial In Two Iraqi Jails
BAGHDAD, Oct. 6
(Xinhuanet)
About 6,000 Iraqis and other Arab
nationalities were being held without trial in both Abu Ghoraib
prison, west of Baghdad, and Pokka prison in Basra, 600 km south of
Baghdad, local newspaper Al Mashriq reported Wednesday.
The health
committee of the Iraqi National Council and the legal committee of
the Iraqi Ministry of Human Rights visited the two prisons and found
that all the detainees there were not tried or even charged with any
allegation and most of them were arrested illegally, according to
the report.
"Among the detainees are teenagers
less than 14 years old as well as elders over 60," Ryadh Al Adhadh,
head of the health and environment committee of the council, was
quoted as saying. "Fathers
together with their sons were arrested and the handicapped including
the blind were also imprisoned with no charge," Adhadh added.
He also noted that 56 detainees held
in the two prisons were from other Arab countries, including Syria,
Egypt, Libya, Sudan and Iran.
Pokka prison in
Basra is located in a heavily-polluted area surrounded by
petrochemical and manure factories which caused diseases among the
detainees, said Adhadh. Enditem
OCCUPATION ISN’T
LIBERATION
BRING ALL THE
TROOPS HOME NOW!
Thanks To Butchers
Running U.S. Occupation, Zarqawi Gains Support In Iraq
(Philadelphia Inquirer, October 6,
2004)
Once reviled as the man who brought
beheadings to Iraq, Jordanian-born Abu Musab al-Zarqawi
is gaining support among Iraqis who are outraged over the trail of
razed neighborhoods and dead civilians left by the U.S. military's
anti-insurgent offensives this month.
House Panel Will
Investigate Bush Regime Iraq Oil Corruption
(New York Times, October 6, 2004)
A House subcommittee investigating the
United Nations oil-for-food program expanded its inquiry to the Bush
administration's postwar stewardship of Iraq's oil money.
The move came after subcommittee
Democrats staged a surprise revolt at a hearing on accusations of
corruption and mismanagement in the $67 billion program.
Occupation Haiti;
Report Of
Resistance Action
Wall St. Journal 10.6.04
Aristide backers have turned to
beheading Haitian policemen they capture to demoralize the force.
[Why are there no serious press
reports of resistance to the occupation of Haiti?]
UN Employees Demand
Immediate Withdrawal Of Themselves
10.6.04 Associated Press
UNITED NATIONS Two associations of
United Nations workers are urging Secretary-General Kofi Annan to
withdraw all U-N staffers from Iraq. The groups, representing
60-thousand U-N employees, say the country is too dangerous for
staffers.
In a letter to Annan, they cite a
rising level of kidnappings, killings and bombings in Iraq. And they
say the U-N is becoming a target.
DANGER: POLITICIANS
AT WORK
“Hi! I’m George
Bush, your Commander-In-Chief. I’m happy to meet you, as long as
you’re still alive that is. I don’t ever do funerals, but hell,
after you’re dead what do you care?” (AP
Photo/Susan Walsh)
Secretary of State
Colin Powell watching the debate between Dickless Cheney and Little
Johnny Edwards. Shortly after this photograph was taken during the
Vice-presidents opening remarks, Powell vomited copiously. However,
he denied this represented any continuation of his well publicized
conflicts with Cheney. (Larry Downing/Reuters)
Christian
Fundamentalist Jihadists Execute Helpless Prisoner Despite Pleas
From Police Chief
Wall St. Journal, 10.6.04
Texas executed Edward
Green, convicted of murder, despite pleas by Houston’s police chief
for a moratorium because of suspect work by the city’s crime lab.
Murderous Idiot
Kerry Says Win The War With Mexico
October 5, 2004 Stan Moore,
www.dissidentvoice.org
In his recent
debate with President George W. Bush, John Kerry used a very good
analogy, and then promptly either forgot or ignored its
ramifications.
Kerry said that
invading Iraq after 9/11 could be compared to invading Mexico
after Pearl Harbor. Yet, somehow, after drawing the analogy,
which was a good one, he seemed to indicate that had we invaded
Mexico after Pearl Harbor, and had the Mexicans resisted our
invasion by force of arms, we should have called in Canada and
other allies to subdue the Mexicans and stop their "terroristic"
resistance.
How is it that Kerry could draw this
analogy and then refuse to consider immediate withdrawal from Iraq
should he be elected?
How could Kerry call for an
international summit to draw other nations into the "colossal error
of judgment" that he described Bush' war with Iraq as being?
What legitimate purpose could
possibly be served by enlarging a coalition of foreign participants
in the illegal invasion and occupation of an innocent sovereign
nation we had invaded on false pretenses?
Kerry wants to be
the hero of a war he once condemned! And now he condemns
President Bush for going to war, but declares that if elected, he
will win it!
Poor Iraqis! They must be listening
to these matters via Arabic media and wondering which is bad and
which is worse -- Bush or Kerry!
The Iraqi
resistance movement must understand clearly that their battle will
not be over and their fight will not be won based on the upcoming
U.S. elections, no matter who wins. Patriotic Iraqis know that they
must defy both political parties in the U.S. and that neither is
their friend.
And the American
people must understand that Democrats and Republicans are more
alike than different and that Bush and Kerry are connected like
skulls and bones.
The American public may only resolve
this situation when they sufficiently tire of the spilling of
American blood, just like happened in the Vietnam War. Presidents
of both political parties sent American boys to die in Vietnam, and
the same may occur in Iraq. If Kerry continues the assault on Iraq,
his name will be reviled in the world just as the name of George W.
Bush already is.
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.
AFGHANISTAN
WAR REPORTS
CIA Man Slams
Afghanistan Happy Talk
Excerpts from THE CONSEQUENCES OF
BELIEVING YOUR OWN PROPAGANDA
Mamadou Chinyelu, The Black
Commentator
And don’t forget Afghanistan. It’s
also pure fantasy to declare that conflict has ended.
For example, a retired CIA officer
in a position to know recently drew a parallel between the Soviet
and U.S. occupations of Afghanistan.
“Now in the second year of America’s
Afghan enterprise, there is less talk of things being easy.
“The accounts of
Operation Enduring Freedom and [the] analysis of Soviet operations
in the Panjshir in 1984 have begun to
sound hauntingly familiar: crisp military briefers giving cheerily
optimistic but unconvincing accounts of a beaten enemy, of high body
counts, but again without the bodies," wrote Milt
Bearden in his new book (co-authored by James Risen), The Main
Enemy: The Inside Story of the CIA's Final Showdown with the KGB.
BUSH'S AFGHANISTAN:
Women Still Beaten,
Enslaved;
Drug Lords Rule
Beaten Afghan
Brides
Nicholas D. Kristof
(New York Times, October 6, 2004)
It has been two years since
President Bush declared that in
Afghanistan, "Today, women are free." But that's news to the
inmates of the women's detention center in Kabul. The entire jail is
a kaleidoscope of woe. Many inmates are women who refused arranged
marriages and now face beatings or even death at the hands of their
own families.
Afghanistan's
Drug Boom
Michele Alliot-Marie
(Washington Post, October 6, 2004, Pg.
27)
Afghanistan is
responsible for three-quarters of the world's production of opium,
impeding the country's stabilization as the
profits help fund activities by warlords and the Taliban.
Puppet Kharzai
Campaigns Again, Protected By U.S. “Security”
Wall St. Journal 10.6.04
Afghanistan’s Kharzai
made a second campaign trip out of Kabul since last month’s failed
assassination. The Ghazni event had heavy U.S. security.
Received:
From: CS
To: GI Special
Sent: Wednesday, October 06, 2004 4:29
PM
Subject: Re: GI Special 2#B83:
Casualties Of War
I liked your comment in 2#B83 Forward
Observations. I guess the right to bear arms as explicitly enshrined
in the American Constitution, was included for a good reason. The
outcome of the war/conflict in Iraq might determine whether such
right is in fact a useful tool for the self-defence of not just
individuals but a sovereign nation as a whole. CS
GI Special distributes and posts to our
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invasion and occupation of Iraq. We believe this constitutes a
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section 107 of the US Copyright Law since it is being distributed
without charge or profit for purely educational purposes
to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the
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http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. for more
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this newsletter is your personal property and cannot legally be
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