GI SPECIAL 3C97:

[Thanks to Z, who sent this in.]

"I Was Saying, See These Oil Fires? This Is Why We're Here, Guys. We're Not Defending Freedom"

[Iraq Veterans Against The War Member, Tomas Young]

[Thanks to PB and Phil G, who sent this in.]

October 27th, 2005 By Ryan Parry, The Daily Mirror

"I went to fight in Iraq to get revenge for 9/11... I found out Bush had led us into a war that was immoral and totally wrong..."

BRAVE Tomas Young saw it as his patriotic duty to join the Army three days after 9/11. Tomas, 25, wanted revenge on the terrorists who murdered nearly 2,750 people in the Twin Towers. But on his first mission in Iraq - and before he had fired a single bullet in anger - he was left paralysed from the chest down after being shot in an ambush.

Now his anguish at never being able to walk again has turned to anger that he and thousands of others are being sent to fight an immoral war for George Bush.

As America this week mourned its 2000th victim of the war, Tomas said: "I joined the Army to exact some sort of retribution on what happened to us, whether it be going to find Osama bin Laden or to get al-Qaeda. "I joined to get back for what happened. Nothing more, nothing less. But so far there have been 2,000 dead American soldiers and some 100,000 dead Iraqi civilians.

"That's certainly a lot more than we lost on September 11. What has happened in Iraq is wrong."

Tomas, now confined to a wheelchair, is bitter that his Government's lies got him to enroll. And he is frustrated Mr Bush will not listen to the American public and withdraw the troops.

He said: "From the start I didn't see a connection between Iraq and 9/11, but when Bush first said, 'Weapons of mass destruction', I bought into that a bit.

"However, when that reason became more and more bullshit I started to fall off the bandwagon. "It became clear they didn't have any strong connection and that's when I started to snap."

His opposition to the war hardened soon after he was sent to Iraq with the 2nd Battalion 5th Cavalry regiment in March 2004. The soldier, of Kansas City, Missouri, recalled: "I was saying, 'See these oil fires? This is why we're here, guys. We're not defending freedom'. I realized my reasons for joining were being twisted."

The day that would alter his life forever came on April 4. He and his colleagues were sent to guard a rescue mission in Baghdad's Sadr City district. He found himself one of 25 troops crammed into a truck meant to hold 18.

Although the rescue mission went smoothly, his truck later came under attack from rooftop snipers armed with AK47s. Tomas said: "They opened fire and myself and three or four others got shot. It was like shooting fish in a barrel."

HE was hit under the shoulder blade and the bullet severed his spinal cord, paralyzing him instantly. "I went numb," he recalled. "I dropped my M16 and my fingertips were tingling. It was like a shock through my body. I went rigid. I remember looking at my hands and trying to will them to grab my M16, but couldn't get them to move. I tried to yell but all I could get out was a horse-whisper."

A second shot tore into his knee. He scarcely felt it. Tomas was eventually airlifted to hospitals in Kuwait, Germany and, finally, Washington DC. He was constantly sedated and recalls little. But he remembers the emotional moment he came round and saw his mother, Cathy Smith.

"I'm a mommy's boy," he admitted. "I don't care how tough you are, when you see your mom after what I've been through you start to cry."

Last Saturday, Staff Sgt George Alexander, 34, became the 2,000th US soldier killed in the conflict. He had been hit by a roadside bomb in Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad, five days earlier.

The death was viewed as a grim landmark by America's growing anti-war movement. Now Tomas is determined to ensure it is one of the last.

Tomas and wife Brie, 24, are now trying to look to the future and are thinking of having IVF treatment to start a family. But he remains angry about the way the war changed his life. And he called on Mr Bush to stop others suffering in the same way. "I'd probably be a little bitter even if the war was just," he confessed.

"But the fact that I'm in this situation, compounded with the fact we went to an immoral war, makes it harder to accept.

"Bush led us into something that was wrong. He now needs to lead us out." [Never happen. But Tomas and the other Iraq Veterans and active duty troops can lead millions of Americans in a movement that will whip Bush and the rest of the Imperial warlords to their knees. They are our best hope.]

www.ivaw.net

Military Shares Public's Declining Support For Bush, War

[Thanks to James Starowicz, Veterans For Peace, who sent this in.]

10/28/2005 WCNC

More than half the North Carolina military members surveyed in the latest Elon University poll don't like the way President Bush is handling his job and the war in Iraq.

The survey results were released today.

Of the 539 adults surveyed, nearly 53 percent of military members said they strongly disapproved or disapproved of Bush's handling of his job. And 56 percent of that same group said they strongly disapproved or disapproved of his handling of the Iraq war.

IRAQ WAR REPORTS

TWO MARINES KILLED IN SAQLAWIYAH

October 28, 2005 HEADQUARTERS UNITED STATES CENTRAL COMMAND NEWS RELEASE Number: 05-10-41C

CAMP FALLUJAH, Iraq -- Two Marines assigned to Regimental Combat Team 8, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force (Forward), were killed in an indirect fire attack in Saqlawiyah, Oct. 27.

II MEF SOLDIER KILLED IN ACTION AT RAMADI

October 28, 2005 HEADQUARTERS UNITED STATES CENTRAL COMMAND NEWS RELEASE Number: 05-10-39C

CAMP FALLUJAH, Iraq  A Soldier assigned to the 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force (Forward), was killed in action while conducting combat operations against the enemy when his vehicle was attacked with an improvised explosive device in ar Ramadi Oct. 27.

TASK FORCE BAGHDAD SOLDIER KILLED BY ROADSIDE BOMB

October 28, 2005 HEADQUARTERS UNITED STATES CENTRAL COMMAND NEWS RELEASE Number:

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- A Task Force Baghdad Soldier died of wounds after his patrol struck an improvised explosive device Oct. 27 in south Baghdad.

TASK FORCE BAGHDAD SOLDIER ON RESCUE TEAM KILLED BY SECOND ROADSIDE BOMB

October 28, 2005 HEADQUARTERS UNITED STATES CENTRAL COMMAND NEWS RELEASE Number: 05-10-40C & WISTV

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- A Task Force Baghdad Soldier was killed when terrorists detonated a roadside bomb Oct. 27 in south Baghdad.

This is a separate casualty from the same incident reported in release 05-10-38C.

In one incident, a soldier died of injuries he sustained when his patrol hit a bomb in southern Baghdad on Thursday.

A second bomb exploded when other soldiers arrived as a rescue team, killing another soldier.

Texas Sgt. Dies Of Iraq Wounds

October 28, 2005 U.S. Department of Defense News Release No. 1107-05

Sgt. Michael T. Robertson, 28, of Houston, Texas, died at Brooke Army Medical Center, San Antonio, Texas, on Oct. 25, of injuries sustained in Samarra, Iraq, on Oct. 17, when an improvised explosive device detonated near his Bradley Fighting Vehicle.

The incident fatally injured another soldier and was reported on Oct. 25. Robertson was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 15th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division, Fort Benning, Ga.

Army Sergeant From El Paso Dies In Vehicle Accident

October 15, 2005 Chris Roberts, El Paso Times

A soldier who graduated from Ysleta High School became the ninth El Paso casualty since the conflict in Iraq began two years ago.

Sgt. Lorenzo Ponce Ruiz, 26, of El Paso, was killed Oct. 12 in a combat zone near Balad, Iraq, when the Humvee he was in which he was riding turned over after colliding with a civilian vehicle. There was no hostile action at the time, said Lt. Col. Pamela Hart, an Army spokeswoman at the Pentagon.

Liz Rodriguez met Ponce Ruiz when he was courting her friend during their years at Ysleta High. She remembers him as a "sweet guy."

"He was just a real nice person," she said. "He was someone who would help anyone out if they needed his help."

Rodriguez said she didn't keep in touch with Ponce Ruiz, but knew some people who were looking forward to hearing about him when the Class of 1995 has its 10-year reunion next week.

"It is going to be very sad," she said. "Everyone around here seems to be in shock."

Ponce Ruiz graduated from Ysleta High in 1997 and is the son of Carlos and Cruz Ponce.

Ponce Ruiz was assigned to the 24th Transportation Company, 541st Maintenance Battalion out of Fort Riley, Kan., and was trained as a heavy vehicle driver. He enlisted in September 2001 and arrived at Fort Riley in March 2002.

He was on his second deployment to Iraq.

Since the conflict began in March 2003, seven soldiers and two Marines from El Paso have died. The total number of soldiers, airmen, Marines and sailors from the El Paso area who have been injured is not known.

Kansas Soldiers Dies On 22^nd Birthday

Oct. 21, 2005 Associated Press

The military on Wednesday reported the first death from Alaska's Stryker Brigade. Army Spc. Lucas A. Frantz, of Kansas was killed Tuesday - his 22nd birthday - during a mission in Mosul.

Amarillo Soldier Killed By Explosive Devices

10/20/2005 Associated Press

A 31-year-old Amarillo soldier has died of injuries suffered in Iraq in a series of explosions that went off near the vehicle he was in, the Department of Defense said Thursday.

Army Staff Sgt. Tommy I. Folks Jr. died in Baghdad after being injured Tuesday in Iskandariyah, Iraq, the department said.

He was assigned to the Army National Guard's 2nd Battalion, 142nd Infantry Regiment, 56th Brigade Combat Team, 36th Infantry Division in Amarillo.

His father, who served 24 years as a Marine, had never ceased worrying about his son since his deployment in January.

"I hoped it would never happen," Tommy Folks said. "You dread that every day."

His son had been home for a visit recently and had returned to Iraq two weeks ago.

The soldier was an Eagle Scout who spent two years attending the University of North Texas before enlisting in the Army.

He served on the Iraq-Kuwait border, Germany, South Korea and Afghanistan.

After that he returned home and studied education at West Texas A&M University in Canyon. He later joined the Texas Army National Guard.

The memories of his son are how most soldiers would want their fathers to remember them.

"He was an immense man, a good man," Tommy Folks said. "We are so proud of him. He was a good son in every respect."

Marine Killed:

"Mixed Feelings Toward The End"

Marine Lance Cpl. Daniel Scott R. Bubb of Grottoes, Va., was struck by small-arms fire in Al Rutbah, Iraq. (Courtesy Robert Johnson)

October 20, 2005 By Leef Smith, Washington Post Staff Writer

It took coaxing from family members yesterday before Julie Bubb would recount her telephone conversation Monday with her nephew, Marine Lance Cpl. Daniel Scott R. Bubb.

"I love you and I'm always worried about you," Julie Bubb said she told him, her voice choked with tears.

"Julie, don't worry. I'm okay," he told her.

About three hours later, he was dead, she said.

Pentagon officials said Daniel Bubb, 19, of Grottoes, Va., was killed when he was hit by small-arms fire while conducting combat operations against enemy forces in Al Rutbah, Iraq.

Bubb was assigned to the 1st Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion, 1st Marine Division, 1st Marine Expeditionary Force out of Camp Pendleton, Calif. During Operation Iraqi Freedom, his unit was attached to the 2nd Marine Division, 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force (Forward).

Family members gathered yesterday at Bubb's grandmother's home in Grottoes, a town about 15 miles south of Harrisonburg, Va., to meet with Marine officials coordinating the return of his body from Iraq.

Bubb's mother, Janey Harrah, 40, was picking up her two younger sons at school Monday when her husband called. Without implying that there was anything wrong, he asked her to meet him at her mother's home. There she was greeted by her husband and several Marines dispatched to deliver the terrible news that her son had died.

Harrah said her son was 16 when he started pleading with her to let him enlist in the military. When he graduated from high school, she relented, accompanying him to the recruiting station and agreeing not to cry.

"On the day of his (17^th) birthday, I signed my boy over to them," Harrah recalled. "I was distraught."

Harrah said she tried not to worry. She watched the news, but instead of violent television shows, she watched her son's favorites -- cartoons such as "The Simpsons" and "South Park" -- anything to "settle me down," she said.

On Monday, there was no escaping it. Sitting in her mother's home, surrounded by family members, she described her son as a well-rounded boy who impressed his parents and other adults by participating in track meets, serving as a church acolyte and stepping up as drum major in his high school marching band.

Although he was not one of his school's best students, he would help others with their work, his mother said.

Harrah said it was the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, that really molded her son's future. Sept. 11 "made up his mind," Harrah said. "He really wanted to be there. . . . He always wanted to be the best, no matter what. He wanted to be the hero. He wanted to be the one that took care of business over there."

Harrah said her son's resolve wavered somewhat when he returned home after his first eight months in Iraq.

"He was wishy-washy," Harrah said. "But he wanted closure on the war over there." He had some "mixed feelings toward the end. But he had to deal with it. He had to brave up and step up to the plate."

She talked to her son about a week before his death.

"He wouldn't let me ask any questions about him so I wouldn't worry," Harrah recalled. "He was happy. I told him 'I love you, I love you, I love you,' and he said it back to me.

"I had him when I was 19, and he died when he was 19," Harrah said, her voice heavy with sorrow. "He was my best friend."

Bubb would have turned 20 the day after his death.

Md. Marine, A Newlywed, Is Killed:

"He Didn't Seem Too Happy"

"He Didn't Know Why He Was There"

October 21, 2005 By Allan Lengel, Washington Post Staff Writer

In August, Lance Cpl. Norman W. Anderson III got married in Baltimore County. Days later, the 21-year-old Marine was off to Iraq. His honeymoon would wait.

"He didn't seem too happy; he didn't know why he was there," said Dillon Sullivan, a close childhood friend who attended Anderson's wedding. "But he figured people get through it. They get over there, then they're done and they come back and start their life."

Anderson, of Parkton, Md., was killed Wednesday by a suicide bomber in a vehicle while he was on patrol in Karabilah, the Defense Department said. His unit, the 3rd Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division, 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force, was out to prevent insurgents from crossing into Iraq.

Anderson played running back for the Hereford High School football team.

"He was really a dedicated player," said Ed Darney, a teammate who now plays football at the University of Richmond. "On the field, we always joked around. He always had a smile. He never seemed to be in a bad mood."

After graduating in 2002, Anderson enlisted in the Marines. He was based at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina and did a tour in Afghanistan.

This summer he returned home to marry a high school classmate at a church wedding in Hunt Valley, outside of Baltimore.

Not long after the reception, Anderson went to Iraq.

Underneath the joy, Anderson harbored doubt about his mission overseas, Sullivan said.

"He didn't totally understand why he was over there," Sullivan said.

Last night, Sullivan said he was grieving and angry. He said the war never seemed real -- "until yesterday."

Notes From A Lost Imperial War:

The Snipe Hunt

October 26, 2005 By Gordon Trowbridge, Army Times staff writer

SADAH, Iraq  It was, Cpl. Jereme Roodhouse agreed, just like a snipe hunt. As a church camp counselor in his younger days back home in Michigan, Roodhouse had led campers on nighttime hunts for the mythical animal. The joke, of course, was that there is no such thing as a snipe.

After seven hours of walking the streets of this Euphrates River town and following up one fruitless intelligence tip after another, cold, hard facts on the insurgents Roodhouse knew were operating in Sadah seemed snipe-like in their scarcity.

"Nobody here knows anything," said Roodhouse, 23, of Holland, Mich. "These people are too scared to help us." [Maybe. But, hard as it is to imagine, maybe they just don't like their country overrun and occupied by a bunch of fucking armed foreigners imposing a military dictatorship and ripping off their oil for George W. Bush.

[Texas still has some oil. Let's send 138,000 Iraqi troops to occupy Texas and grab the oil there for some foreign politician. Then we'll see if Texas are "too scared" to help the Iraqis. Deal?]

Some tips lead to progress, such as the news that a white Chevrolet Caprice with a missing back tire was being prepared as a car bomb.

A patrol led by 1st Platoon's commander, 2nd Lt. Brian Fischesser, found the Caprice just where intelligence had predicted. A thermite grenade placed by an explosive ordnance disposal robot in the car's back seat didn't set off any explosions, but a search of the house found a small cache of AK-47 rifles and collection of wires and batteries  ingredients for roadside bombs  stuffed inside a television, and an ammunition magazine for a Dragunov sniper rifle.

"These guys," Fischesser said, "have to be dirty."

Other tips are less productive. Two days after the Caprice discovery, 1st Platoon was in a hurry, setting up a night raid not far from Iwo Jima. Another intelligence source had indicated a weapons cache was buried outside a walled compound containing several houses.

The intelligence was so specific that the Marines walked straight to the spots in question. But after a half-hour huddled around the spots, taking turns with shovels and any other tool they could find, a half-dozen officers and senior noncommissioned officers found themselves shaking their heads, staring into two empty holes.

For one night, at least, no snipes to be found. [Right. But it keep them busy. Neat tactic. By the resistance, of course.]

TROOP NEWS

"I Don't Know What The Mission Is"

"I Haven't Known For A Long Time"

"I'm Tired Of Putting Kids In Body Bags"

28 October 2005 By Celeste Zappala and Anne Roesler, Truthout Perspective [Excerpts]

The number of US soldiers killed in the Iraq War is passing the 2,000 mark.

We belong to military families who understand the true costs of this war. Celeste's son, Sgt. Sherwood Baker, was killed on April 26, 2004, while protecting the Iraq Survey Group as they looked for the weapons of mass destruction - long after everyone knew there were none.

Since his death, 1,280 more Americans have died in Iraq, along with countless Iraqis. Many more have been wounded in both body and soul. The justifications given for this war have been exposed as lies. But the litany of excuses is still repeated by the President: 9/11, links to al Qaeda, weapons of mass destruction. Somehow, the President's response to the daily death toll of Americans and Iraqis is to stay the course, while more and more Americans ask daily, Why?

For Anne, the war is an ongoing threat.

Anne's son, a Staff Sergeant in the Army's 82nd Airborne Division, has spent more than 550 days in Iraq since the invasion and is currently serving his third tour of duty there. Prior to his recent deployment, he said, "I don't know what the mission is; I haven't known for a long time."

By the spring of 2003, he knew that there were no weapons of mass destruction.

While he was angry that he'd been sent to a war based on lies, he hoped that he'd be part of something positive in rebuilding the country. He was in awe of being in Iraq, in the cradle of civilization, where even the dirt smells different.

But things rapidly spiraled downward: "We've opened up a hornet's nest, and there's no putting them back." As the months passed, and he saw the futility of American troops being in Iraq, he couldn't wait to return home.

"I'm tired of putting kids in body bags," he said.

Unfortunately, he was redeployed after only 7 months back in the US.

Upon returning to Iraq he described the increasing chaos and not knowing who the enemy was. He returned from this tour a very different person than he'd been before. The war and the atrocities he'd witnessed took a heavy toll.

It was only months before he was redeployed for the third time.

Before he left, he said, "If I come home this time, it will take me years to get over it."

It will indeed take this country and Iraq decades to recover from this war. President Bush says we must fight our enemies abroad in order to prevent them from harming US citizens at home, but who is the enemy, really?

We are creating enemies in Iraq daily as we occupy the country and as Iraqis continue to die. Having our troops remain in Iraq is the equivalent of pouring fuel on a fire.

It is too late for the 2,000 families. They are forever tied by grief to the disaster that is the Iraq War.

Saving the lives of those who are still serving or about to be sent to Iraq is the urgent mission of all military families who ask: how many more of America's sons and daughters should we sacrifice for a war based on lies?

How many more should we allow to return home maimed and broken?

How many more families will hear the worst news of their lives, before America says no, we will no longer quietly comply.

Anne's son wonders, Do the American people even care about us? Military Families Speak Out members do care, and that is why they speak out in support of the troops, the truth, and our responsibility as a nation to end this reckless war.

The Administration says we can't get out yet. When will it be time?

Master Sgt. Stephen Walter at attention as Marines line up to carry Cpl. Andre Williams, who was killed in Iraq, Aug. 6, 2005 in Columbus, Ohio. Williams was a member of Lima Company 3rd Battalion based in Columbus. (AP Photo/Kiichiro Sato)

U.S. Troop Level In Iraq Sets New Record:

161,000

October 28, 2005 Los Angeles Times

The U.S. has increased military forces in Iraq to 161,000 troops, the highest total of the war, and the Pentagon said it expects a similar number to be in place for the December elections.

Decorated British Combat Vet Refuses To Return To Illegal War

[Thanks to Ewa J, who sent this in.]

October 28, 2005 Audrey Gillan, The Guardian

An RAF doctor who refused to serve in Iraq because he believed the decision to go to war was "manifestly illegal" stood by his actions at a court martial yesterday.

Flight Lieutenant Malcolm Kendall-Smith, 37, a medical officer based at Kinloss, faces four charges of disobeying a lawful command under the Air Force Act and could become the first member of the armed forces to be jailed for his refusal to serve in Iraq. His lawyer, Justin Hugheston-Roberts, said after the hearing that his client did "not enter into this lightly".

He added: "He maintains his stance and he will maintain his plea of not guilty, on the basis that the war in Iraq was manifestly illegal. It is a legal test to seek out a ruling on the jurisprudence of the issue: was the war legal or not?"

Lt Kendall-Smith has been decorated for his role in Afghanistan and two previous tours in Iraq. But he refused to return to active service in Iraq after studying the legal advice of Lord Goldsmith, the attorney general, and concluded that it was wrong.

Lt Kendall-Smith has said previously that he is not a conscientious objector, and Mr Hugheston-Roberts has pointed out that his client would not necessarily refuse to serve in another conflict.

Issues such as the legality of the Iraq war would arise at the hearing in March. A central plank of the case is said to be that under RAF law an officer is justified in refusing commands if illegal.

It is understood that senior officers, concerned about the effect of Iraq on military morale, would not relish the prospect of Lt Kendall-Smith going to jail, thus becoming a martyr and another focus of opposition over Iraq.

South Korea Plans To Cut Troops In Iraq

Oct. 28, 2005 News World Communications, Inc

South Korea plans to cut its troops in Iraq by 1,000 soldiers early next year, a senior government official said Friday.

The official said Seoul would consider a further reduction of its 3,250 troops in the second half of next year after reviewing the security situation, the Korea Times reported. The official was speaking on condition of anonymity, the newspaper said.

South Korea has the third largest contingent in Iraq after the United States.

"When Recruiters Lie, Students Die"

October 28, 2005 Socialist Worker

In Austin, Texas, 30 people from the Campus Antiwar Movement to End the Occupation organized a protest against military recruiters on October 19 at the University of Texas Career Expo. The group surrounded the Army recruiters, and hoisted signs reading, "When recruiters lie, students die," and "Recruiters off our campus."

Protestors chanted military-style cadences, including: "When they send you off to war, they don't tell you what's in store. Killing civilians is a crime, from Iraq to Palestine." The group was very successful in keeping people away from the recruiters.

Cadets Against The War

Soldier for a different cause: Monique Dols. photo: Kate Englund

October 28th, 2005 by Anya Kamenetz, Village Voice. [Excerpt]

One Saturday this summer, Monique Dols, a Columbia University senior and a national leader of the Campus Antiwar Network (CAN), saw again why she has been working so hard to reach potential military recruits. "We were handing out flyers for an event with the brother of a military resister," Dols says of that day in Washington Heights.

"Three 16-year-old (ROTC) cadets walked by in full military uniform. We started talking to them, and it turned out they were completely against the war.

They had joined because it was an after-school program that provided structure and something for them to do. The priorities of a society that puts millions into military recruitment and continually cuts funding for after-school programs, that's backward, and that's the reality people are responding to."

Josh Karpoff, an engineering student at the Rochester Institute of Technology and a national organizer for the Campus Antiwar Network, felt the new energy on September 24, when he joined in the Iraq war protest in Washington, D.C.

"Our College Not Combat contingent had 3,000 people marching in it, from chapters all over the East Coast. This was one of the biggest things that the Campus Antiwar Network had ever organized." Karpoff adds that anti-war sentiment is burgeoning even on his relatively conservative campus, where defense contractor Lockheed Martin is a major presence.

When the marines recently showed up to tout an officer candidate program, student activists swarmed their table with counter-recruitment literature. The recruiters packed up and left within 45 minutes.

Small victories like those are fueling this movement. But activists also have their eyes on the prize: a recruiting drought so bad that it forces the administration to close the door on the war.

"Why are the recruitment numbers so bad this year, as opposed to 20022003?" "It's a combination of the fact that the war is unpopular and that you have a real movement giving people information about other opportunities available."

Rumsfeld Owns Bird Flu Medicine Stock;

Won't Sell It

October 28, 2005 New York Times

Secretary Rumsfeld has recused himself from government decisions concerning medications to prevent or treat avian flu, rather than sell his stock holdings of a company that patented the antiviral agent Tamiflu.

IRAQ RESISTANCE ROUNDUP

"There Is No Need To Hold Elections"

"We Tried Elections Before And Got Nothing"

October 24, 2005 By John Ward Anderson and Bassam Sebti, The Washington Post & October 18, 2005 By Dexter Filkins and Robert F. Worth, The New York Times

BAGHDAD -- Thaer Abbas Shammari smiled contentedly and leaned on a table crammed with merchandise outside his Baghdad convenience store on constitution referendum day last weekend, bantering with neighbors, customers and passersby. But when the talk turned to voting, he stood bolt upright.

"Look!" he bellowed, lifting his shirt and one pant leg to display neck, stomach and ankle scars that he said were inflicted during 14 years as a political prisoner under Saddam Hussein. When he pointed to a picture of his brother taped to the front door -- a "hero and martyr" executed by the former government for supposedly belonging to an outlawed political party -- it seemed natural to assume that Shammari would march to the polling center 100 yards away and cast his ballot.

Not so.

"I did not vote or encourage anyone to vote because the government has given us nothing," the 47-year-old shop owner said, grimacing and waving his arms in disgust. "Where are the results?"

Mahmood Othaman, a Kurdish member of the National Assembly, said "The people who were observing were the same as the candidates. The U.N. sits in Amman and says it's all good, it's free and fair, because they don't want to come here."

"The government is asleep -- there is a big administrative corruption everywhere in its institutions," said Sattar Ibrahim Ali, 45, a Baghdad dentist who was spending hours waiting in a gasoline line Friday morning.

"The Americans say they brought democracy -- yes, we have democracy, but on paper," he said. "There is no development, improvement, peace or construction because of this democracy."

"We have done our part -- we did everything the government asked us to do -- but it seems the government only asks, it never gives, and that's why people are frustrated," said Sameer Nouri Faisal, 45, a lawyer from Mosul. "We always pay, but we never get what we pay for."

"There is no need to hold elections in Iraq -- we tried elections before and got nothing," said Rauof Abdullah Ouji, 35, a doctor from Kirkuk. "People lost hope in their government and political powers and the Americans."

"If I'm able to get fuel . . . it's more useful for us than this theater called the Saddam trial," said Salim Hussein, a taxi driver waiting in a long line for gasoline in Dujail, the scene of a 1982 assassination attempt against Hussein that was followed by 143 executions. Hussein is being tried in those killings.

"The Americans and the Iraqi government are trying to divert people's attention, first with the constitution and second with this fake trial," said Mohammed Yousif, 31, the owner of a downtown Baghdad parking garage. "Explosions increased, enemies of Iraq increased, and the current situation is terrible. I wish we still lived under Saddam."

FORWARD OBSERVATIONS

An IED-Free Road

26 October 2005 By Scott Ritter, The Nation [Excerpt]

Mr. Hersh: How do you get them out, how quickly?

Mr. Ritter: The quicker the better. I mean, I'd leave it up to military professionals to determine how you reduce perimeters. There are some areas of the country where you can just literally up and run.

But I guarantee you this, if we went to the insurgents-and I do believe that we're having some sort of interaction with the insurgents today-and said we're getting out of here, all attacks would stop. They'd do everything they can to make sure that the road out of Iraq was as IED-free as possible.

It's Not A "Mistake"

It's Treason

Oct 26, 2005 by Meteor Blades Via Veterans For Peace Discussion, [Excerpt]

Someone said it again today. Invading Iraq was a mistake. Every time it gets said, I grind another layer of enamel off my teeth. Nancy Pelosi says it. John Kerry says it. Mikhail Gorbachev says it. Spain's Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero says it. Even the occasional Republican says it. And recent polls indicate 55% to 59% of Americans think it.

Every one of them is wrong. Invading Iraq was no mistake. It was bloody treason. And the traitors still rule us instead of breaking rocks at Leavenworth.

They knowingly, willingly, unhesitatingly pronounced what they knew to be lies and marginalized, denigrated and smeared contrary-minded people, manipulated real evidence, concocted fake evidence, tricked an American population traumatized, fearful and furious about terrorism and sent young men and women off to a war at the tip of a bayonet named "9/11."

A mistake is when you hammer your thumb instead of the nail. A mistake is when you choose c) instead of d) on the SAT. A mistake is when you put too much garlic in the minestrone.

Invading Iraq was no damned mistake. And calling it a mistake is more than a mere slip of the tongue. It sets a precedent. Pretty soon, everybody will be saying invading Iraq was a mistake. And in 20 years, your grandkids will be studying out of textbooks that call it a mistake.

Instead of calling it what it really was. Sedition.

Over and over again for three years we've had our faces rubbed in the evidence. Yet, every day, someone calls this perfidious, murderous scheme a mistake. As if invading Iraq were a foreign policy mishap. Oopsy.

Stop it already. People do not commit treachery by mistake.

As we full well know, even before George W. Bush was scooted into office 5-to-4, the men he came to front for were already at work plotting their rationale for sinking deeper military and economic roots in the Middle East, petropolitics and neo-imperialist sophistry greedily intertwined.

When they stepped into office, as Richard Clarke explained to us , terrorism gave them no worries. They blew off Clarke and they blew off Hart-Rudman with scarcely a fare-thee-well.

Then, when they weren't figuring out how to lower taxes on their pals and unravel the tattered social safety net, they focused - as Paul O'Neill informed us - on finding the right excuse to persuade the American people to go to war with Saddam Hussein as a prelude to going to war with some of his neighbors. In less than nine months, that excuse dropped into their laps in the form of Osama bin Laden's kamikaze crews.

From that terrible day forward, Richard Cheney and his sidekick Donald Rumsfeld and their like-minded coterie of rogues engineered the invasion.

They didn't slip the U.S. into Iraq by mistake. Like the shrewd opportunists they have shown themselves to be in the business world, they saw the chance to carry out their invasion plan and they moved every obstacle - most especially the truth - out of their way to make it happen.

When they couldn't get the CIA to give them the intelligence that would justify their moves they exerted pressure for a change of minds. They exaggerated, reinterpreted and rejiggered intelligence assessments. For icing they concocted their own.

Larry Wilkerson merely confirms what O'Neill and Clarke previously had told us: The traitors didn't mistakenly stumble their way into invasion pushed along by world events; they created a cabal of renegades specifically to carry out the Project for a New American Century's plans for hegemony, first stop - Baghdad.

They didn't carefully weigh options and evaluate the pros and cons and make error in judgment, the kind of wrong choice that could happen to anyone. They studiously ignored everyone who warned them against taking the action they had decided upon years before the World Trade Centers were turned to ashes and dust.

The traitors ignored Brent Scowcroft when he wrote in August 2002, "Don't Attack Saddam". They ignored the Army War College when it warned of the perils of invasion and occupation in a February 2003 report, "Reconstructing Iraq: Insights, Challenges, And Missions For Military Forces In A Post-Conflict Scenario".

When their propaganda failed to measure up as a justification for expending American lives and treasure, they fabricated evidence. Aluminum tubes that experts said could in no way be used to help make nuclear weapons were turned into prima facie evidence of Saddam's intent to do so.

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