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.]
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.
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."
THE young Army specialist
is contemptuous of his President's attempts to justify the conflict.
"Bush kept coming up with reason after reason that was proving to be
wrong," Tomas said.
"It reminded me of
when I was naughty as a kid. "Mom would find out my first excuse wasn't
true, so I'd make up a second and third until I would finally admit what I'd
done and take my whupping."
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.
Tomas said: "The
truck was beaten up. It was supposed to have a canvas cover and armor on the
sides. It didn't have either. Space was so tight that I had my legs folded
and was lying on my back so more people could get in. I was meant to have my
M16 aiming off the side but I couldn't get enough room to pivot it around and
shoot if I needed to."
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.
He is a member of the
Iraq Veterans Against the War movement and recently joined leading activist
Cindy Sheehan at a demo outside Mr Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas. Her son
Casey, 24, was killed in Baghdad on the same day Tomas was hit.
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.
Do you have a friend or relative in the service? Forward this E-MAIL
along, or send us the address if you wish and we'll send it regularly. Whether
in Iraq or stuck on a base in the USA, this is extra important for your service
friend, too often cut off from access to encouraging news of growing resistance
to the war, at home and inside the armed services. Send requests to address up
top.
IRAQ WAR REPORTS
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 22nd 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 (17th) 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.]
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.
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
"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.
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."
IF YOU DON'T LIKE THE RESISTANCE
END THE OCCUPATION
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
Invading Iraq was no
mistake. It was bloody treason. And the traitors still rule us instead of
breaking rocks at Leavenworth.
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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