GI Special: thomasfbarton@earthlink.net 9.10.05 Print it out (color best). Pass it on.

GI SPECIAL 3C48:

August 07, 2005 Photo by Rose Aguilar, Stories In America

Sr. Airman Says “Unpatriotic” To Always Stand By The President

[Thanks to Don Bacon, Smedley Butler Society, who sent this in.] September 9, 2005 By Senior Airman John Nixdorf, Stars and Stripes On Aug. 22, Stripes printed “Pro-Bush camp counters ‘peace mom,” (article, The Associated Press, European print edition; “Patriotic camp springs up to counter peace mom’s anti-war demonstration,” Mideast print edition), about the “patriotic” camp intended to counter Cindy Sheehan. The headline was the same as on the AP feed, with the description of the pro-war camp as “patriotic,” perhaps to indicate Sheehan is “unpatriotic.” In 1918, during World War I, former President Theodore Roosevelt wrote an excellent editorial. In it, he addresses questioning the president during wartime.

He said: “The President is merely the most important among a large number of public servants. He should be supported or opposed exactly to the degree which is warranted by his good conduct or bad conduct, his efficiency or inefficiency in rendering loyal, able, and disinterested service to the Nation as a whole. “Therefore it is absolutely necessary that there should be full liberty to tell the truth about his acts, and this means that it is exactly necessary to blame him when he does wrong as to praise him when he does right. “Any other attitude in an American citizen is both base and servile. “To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. “Nothing but the truth should be spoken about him or anyone else . But it is even more important to tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant, about him than about any one else.” Whether you agree or disagree with his policies, you must never be afraid to question him; it’s patriotic. It’s essential in a free country that the citizenry be willing to question and criticize the president. Saying “we should always stand by the president” is unpatriotic. If decisions must be made on which “camp” is patriotic, listen to Roosevelt.

IRAQ WAR REPORTS

REAL BAD PLACE TO BE: BRING THEM ALL HOME NOW

Spc. Vicente Lliles, of Ellensburg, Washington washes his face in front of a row of humvees on a US Army base, Sept. 9, 2005 in Tal Afar. (AP Photo/Jacob Silberberg)

THIS ENVIRONMENT IS EXTREMELY HAZARDOUS TO YOUR HEALTH:

COME HOME NOW

Two U.S. soldiers take cover on the outskirts of Tal Afar, September 11, 2004. (Namir Noor-Eldeen/Reuters)

TROOP NEWS

Sheehan Outdraws Bush War Supporters 300 To 50 In Heartland

America SEPTEMBER 9, 2005 By Ed Fanselow, staff writer, Batavia, Illinois BATAVIA — One week removed from a 26-day vigil that has been credited for reigniting an anti-war movement, peace activist Cindy Sheehan made a brief stop here Wednesday, vowing to continue her protests until all American troops return home. The visit to the district office of House Speaker Dennis Hastert marked Sheehan's first public appearance outside of Texas, where she spent more than three weeks camped

out near President Bush's Crawford ranch hoping to speak with him about the Iraq conflict and her son Casey, who died there last April. Although she spoke for less than a minute here during one of the first stops of that tour, Sheehan was given a rock star's welcome by a raucous crowd of more than 300 supporters who came from around the Fox Valley and as far away as Wisconsin and Iowa. Meanwhile, about 50 counter-protesters — many of them waving Hastert and Bush-Cheney campaign signs — stood nearby shouting "Go home!" and "Traitor!" Sheehan, for her part, focused her remarks on the victims of Hurricane Katrina, whom she said were "collateral damage" of the war in Iraq. Hundreds of Louisiana national guardsmen who could have helped with relief efforts were instead overseas, she said. "We need our troops home now," she said to uproarious applause. "We need to have them here to protect America."

Karen Meredith of California talks about her son, Kenneth Ballard, who was killed in Iraq. She is supported by Juan Torres, who also lost a son. marianne mather / staff photographer, Batavia, Illinois 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.

PEACE ON TRIAL [AN APPEAL TO HELP DEFEND

THE SHANNON 5] This is a message to Americans from Rose Gentle. Her son was killed in Iraq. She leads a campaign to bring all the Scots and other troops home from Iraq, now.] From: Rose Gentle To: GI Special Sent: September 09, 2005 Subject: shannon air port in irland PEACE ON TRIAL I WAS IN IRLAND FOR 3 DAYS TO MEET WITH THESE PEOPLE. BEFOR THE ILLEGAL INVASION AND BOMBING OF IRAQ, FIVE MEMBERS OF THE PACIFIST CATHOLIC WORKERS MOVEMENT MADE THEIR WAY INTO SHANNON AIRPORT, AND NON-VIOLENTLY DISARMED A US NAVY WARPLANE IN THE EARLY HOURS OF FEBRUARY 3RD 2003. THE PIT STOP PLOUGHSHARES CATHOLIC WORKERS DEIRDRE CLANCY, NUIN DUNLOP, KAREN FALLON, CIARON OREILLY, AND DAMIEN MORAN, SPENT 4 TO 11 WEEKS IN LIMERICK PRISON, PRESENTLY ON BAIL THEY FACE TRIAL AT THE FOUR COURTS ON TWO COUNTS OF CRIMINAL DAMAGE, 100, EUROS AND 2,5 MILLION EUROS,, THEY FACE A MAXIMUM OF TEN

YEARS IN IMPRISONMENT, IF CONVICTED, OVER 95,000 US TROOPS PASSED THROUGH SHANNON. IN THE FIRST 3 MONTHS OF 2005, SHANNON AIRPORT AUTHORITIES HAVE RECEIVED OVER 40 MILLION IN BLOOD MONEY, SINCE 2001, SUBSIDISE US MILLITARY FLIGHT FEES AT SHANNON 2003-04 10000, OF IRAQ HAVE BEEN KILLIED IN THIS WAR, AMERICAN TROOPS HAVE MADE THE RETURN TRIP THROUGH SHANNON AIR PORT FROM IRAQ, AND IN BODY BAGS. THE NEW TRIAL DATE .OCT 24TH THE JURY TRIAL WILL LAST ABOUT TWO WEEKS, LETS SUPPORT THEM, IF YOU CAN, GET TO IRLAND, (DUBLIN) FOR THE TRIAL DATE OR BEFOR, PLEAS GO, 10 YEARS JUST TO STOP PEOPLE GETING KILLIED IS A BIT HARD, YOU GET LESS FOR KILLING PEOPLE, WE ALL KNOW, EMAIL: PLOUGHSHARESIRELAND@YAHOO,IE CONTACT DETAILS: DUBLINCATHOLICWORKER@YAHOO,CO,UK

NEED SOME TRUTH? CHECK OUT TRAVELING SOLDIER

Telling the truth - about the occupation or the criminals running the government in Washington - is the first reason for Traveling Soldier. 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)

Moms Of Iraq Soldiers (Living And Dead)

Cindy Sheehan, whose son was murdered in Iraq by George Bush, with fellow military mom Anne Roesler, right, of Saratoga, Calif., in San Francisco, Sept. 9, 2005. Sheehan, who demands all U.S. troops leave Iraq immediately, believes the war in Iraq is sucking away resources that could be better used in the hurricane ravaged Gulf Coast. Roesler's son is in the 82nd Airborne and on his third tour of duty in Iraq.

(AP Photo/Eric Risberg)

Military And Civilian Officials Say National Guard Deployments To Iraq

Hurt Hurricane Rescue Efforts: Traitor Rumsfeld Caught Lying Again

[Thanks to PB, who sent this in. He writes: Straight from the horse's mouth...] 9.9.05 By ROBERT BURNS, Associated Press Writer

The deployment of thousands of National Guard troops from Mississippi and Louisiana in Iraq when Hurricane Katrina struck hindered those states' initial storm response, military and civilian officials said Friday. Lt. Gen. Steven Blum, chief of the National Guard Bureau, said that "arguably" a day or so of response time was lost due to the absence of the Mississippi National Guard's 155th Infantry Brigade and Louisiana's 256th Infantry Brigade, each with thousands of troops in Iraq. "Had that brigade been at home and not in Iraq, their expertise and capabilities could have been brought to bear," said Blum. Blum said that to replace those units' command and control equipment, he dispatched personnel from Guard division headquarters from Kansas and Minnesota shortly after the storm struck. Rep. Gene Taylor (news, bio, voting record), D-Miss., whose waterfront home here was washed away in the storm, told reporters that the absence of the deployed Mississippi Guard units made it harder for local officials to coordinate their initial response. "What you lost was a lot of local knowledge," Taylor said, as well as equipment that could have been used in recovery operations. "The best equipment went with them, for obvious reasons," especially communications equipment, he added. Asked on Tuesday about critics who said the commitment of large numbers of troops to the Iraq conflict hindered the military's response to Hurricane Katrina, Rumsfeld said, "Anyone who's saying that doesn't understand the situation."

“I'm Still Stressed Out. I'm Still Having Nightmares Over Iraq --

Give Me A Break!” September 6, 2005 By Ann Scott Tyson, Washington Post Staff Writer NEW ORLEANS, Sept. 5 -- Spec. Frank Atkinson, wearing his tan desert fatigues from his recent deployment in Iraq, alternately drove a Humvee through downtown New Orleans streets littered with debris and putrid garbage and held suspected looters at gunpoint with his M-4 rifle. "It's just so much like Iraq, it's not funny," said Atkinson, of Woodlawn, Ark., "except for all the water, and they speak English."

For a year ending this spring, Atkinson's infantry company of the Arkansas National Guard patrolled Baghdad's deadly Haifa Street, and scores of its members were awarded Purple Heart medals after fighting insurgents. Those war-zone images and instincts came flooding back Friday when Atkinson and 300 other Arkansas guardsmen, wearing helmets and full body armor, rolled into the chaos of central New Orleans. "It's like Baghdad on a bad day," said Spec. Brian McKay, 19, of Mount Ida, Ark. While some Arkansas guardsmen said they had volunteered for hurricane duty, many felt wearied by the back-to-back deployments. "I'm still stressed out. I'm still having nightmares over Iraq -- give me a break!" said guardsman Dominic Nettles. Sitting in a warm breeze on the riverfront on a recent night, as fish leapt out of the Mississippi and a fire blazed out of the blackness on a distant shore, Nettles and his buddies smoked cigarettes and traded war stories that transported them back to the banks of the Tigris. "When I came down here, it was just like I was in Iraq. It was unreal," said Spec. Keithean Heath, 20, of Crossett, Ark., shirtless in the heat. "This doesn't happen in your own back yard."

HOW MANY MORE FOR BUSH’S WAR? BRING THEM ALL HOME NOW!

The coffin of U.S. soldier Lt. Carlos Diaz, at his funeral in his hometown of Yauco, in southwestern Puerto Rico, Aug. 31, 2005. Diaz was killed two days earlier in an attack in Iraq, which left six others dead and 20 wounded. (AP Photo/Brennan Linsley)

Air Force Reports FEMA Stupid Useless Incompetent Fuck Ups;

Waiting For The Secretary Of State To Approve Hamburgers

Archbold said FEMA is waiting for approval from Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice’s office to send the hamburgers to Louisiana. September 09, 2005 By David Hammer, Associated Press JACKSONVILLE, Ark. — Federal emergency officials are directing hurricane-aid supplies to areas where they aren’t needed, an Air Force official says, and the result is a backup at Little Rock Air Force Base of shipments of international aid intended for Hurricane Katrina victims in the Gulf Coast region. Civilian truck drivers hired to transport goods to Louisiana and Mississippi have found themselves diverted to locations that don’t need the items they’re carrying, said Air Force Senior Master Sgt. Bret Archbold, who oversees the transfer of international shipments to the big rigs. “We’re backlogged now because the trucks are supposed to run two missions a day, but most of them have been down there for two days and haven’t come back yet,” Archbold said. A fenced off area on the base is filled with pallets of meals ready-to-eat, some of which came from Russian, Italian, Spanish and British aid missions. One trucker who did make it back to the base for a second run, two days after her first, was Cheryl Neal of Jacksonville, Fla. She said she was directed from Camp Beauregard in Alexandria, La., to Gonzales, La., just west of New Orleans, with meals ready-to-eat — only to find they already had plenty. She said she went to two more stops before finding an abandoned Kmart in New Orleans that had been commandeered by the American Red Cross. Customs officials have also held up shipments of MREs from England, which arrived on a Russian cargo jet Wednesday because of concerns about the beef safety. Archbold said FEMA is waiting for approval from Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice’s office to send the hamburgers to Louisiana.

GROUNDS FOR REVOLUTION

Carpenter Alan Perkins walks past a sign put up by another resident living in a tented city in Bay St. Louis, Miss., Sept. 8 , 2005. The victim of Hurricane Katrina put up the sign after she called four times for FEMA's assistance. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)

101st Off To The Imperial Slaughterhouse

101st Airborne Division deploying to Iraq (AP)

September 09, 2005 By Ryan Lenz, Associated Press FORT CAMPBELL, Ky. — Combat soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division will begin deploying to Iraq in the next week, two years after the division helped topple Saddam Hussein, Army officials said Thursday.

The Army is processing nearly 1,000 soldiers a day at Fort Campbell as the 3rd Brigade ramps up to be among the division’s first combat units to replace the Army’s 42nd Infantry Division operating out of Tikrit in north central Iraq.

Reality Check September 09, 2005 Associated Press FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. — Armed and alert, soldiers from Fort Bragg stand guard outside New Orleans’ Superdome, making sure no one from the public goes inside. Why anyone would want to, they can’t imagine. “It’s the nastiest thing ever,” said Pfc. Michael Martinez. “It’s like a war zone,” Pfc. Shawn Seward, 26, said. “It’s just like out of a movie. You’d never expect it in the U.S.” This is the first deployment for Seward and Martinez. Their first view inside the Superdome was memorable — and not in a good way — as they tried to visualize what it was like for the people obliged to stay there.

This Could Save Your Life! (Via Ewa J.) Iraq is a dangerous environment for U. S. troops, especially new arrivals who know nothing of the local language. If you find yourself at risk of harm from pissed off Iraqis, and there are several million of them, yelling these simple phrases may save your life: Yekhrob beit Bush! (May Bush’s house fall down and be destroyed.) Khurr'ub Bush! (Shit on Bush.) Try them out on some kids to get the pronunciation right, and just watch the big smiles come. Somebody might actually throw a flower. And, provided you do not display hostile intent, you might not get fired on. Also useful for other occasions. Use your imagination.

IRAQ RESISTANCE ROUNDUP

Assorted Resistance Action

A burnt Iraqi police car is seen at a highway following clashes between policemen and armed men in Baghdad. (AFP/Ahmad al-Rubaye) 9.8.05 Reuters & 09 September 2005 Aljazeera & Reuters TIKRIT - Two Iraqi soldiers guarding oil industry assets were killed and another nine wounded by a roadside bomb in al-Jazeera area, west of Tikrit, a police source said. Two policemen, including an officer, were killed as they came under fire in the Jamiaa neighbourhood of west Baghdad, an interior ministry official said, adding that four others were wounded in the attack.

"Unknown armed men in two cars opened fire at 11:30 a.m. (0730 GMT) at a two-vehicle police patrol in al-Rabie Street. One police vehicle was burned and the other overturned," police officer Captain Ahmed Abdullah told Xinhua. The casualties in the burned vehicle were not known. BAQUBA - Two special force policemen were shot dead by armed fighters in an open market in the town of Baquba, 65 km (40 miles) north of Baghdad, a police source said. An Iraqi soldier was also wounded by gunshots in a market in Baquba, police added. Three police commandos died and nine other police were wounded as a roadside bomb hit their patrol in Al-Alam neighbourhood of central Baghdad, the interior ministry official said. BAGHDAD - Two Iraqi guards from Facility Protection Service, a government-run security force, were seriously wounded when armed fighters fired on them in southwestern Baghdad, a medical source said.

IF YOU DON’T LIKE THE RESISTANCE END THE OCCUPATION

OCCUPATION CONVOY TAKEN OUT BY RESISTANCE ATTACK

Burning trucks in al-Hiqlaniya, near Fallujah, west of Baghdad, Sept. 8, 2005. Resistance soldiers launched an attack on the trucks carrying supplies for the U.S. military. (AP Photo/Abdul Kadir Saadi)

FORWARD OBSERVATIONS

Overthrow This Government 08 September 2005 By Gordon Adams, The Baltimore Sun [Excerpt] We have a president who is apparently ill-informed, lackadaisical and narrow-minded, surrounded by oil baron cronies, religious fundamentalist crazies and right-wing extremists and ideologues. He has appointed officials who give incompetence new meaning, who replace the positive role of government with expensive baloney. It is time to hold them accountable - this ugly, troglodyte crowd of Capital Beltway insiders, rich lawyers, ideologues, incompetents and their strap-hangers should be tarred, feathered and ridden gracefully and mindfully out of Washington and returned to their caves, clubs in hand.

CHENEY GO HOME

A sign with references to US Vice President Dick Cheney, Halliburton and contracts is scrawled on a deserted street before St. Paul's Church in the French Quarter of New Orleans, Louisiana, following Hurricane Katrina. (AFP/Hector Mata)

“I Have Heard Very Few On The Left Denounce The Imposition Of

Martial Law” September 10, 2005 Anthony Gregory, Lew Rockwell.com Yet all too many left-liberals seem to think the problem is simply Republican mismanagement and not enough government spending. I have heard very few on the left denounce the imposition of martial law and the treatment of human beings in the area as livestock or worse. They complain that the federal government has been all tied up in Iraq and so it has neglected New Orleans, but they have not been as quick to note that perhaps the federal government’s efforts to bring relief and order to the flooded American coast, however well funded, will prove as problematic and counterproductive as its attempts to bring "freedom" to the Middle East. The conservatives and "liberals" who say yes, who endorse martial law as sometimes necessary and proper and massive state violence as the cure to calamity, natural or manmade, are on the wrong side of the most important domestic issue of the day. Our only hope might be that enough liberals and mainstream Americans finally realize that the problem is not small government, or Republican government, but government. This is sort of what happened in the wake of Vietnam and Watergate, when the left followed its anti-establishment impulses and shook off its managerial pretensions just long enough to discover that the whole system was rotten. America had several years of glorious skepticism and cynicism of centralized power. Then the Republicans brought back faith in the federal state in the form of Ronald Reagan. David Brooks worries that we might now be entering into another 1970s, but I would view a new universal discontent with the state as the only possible silver lining of the flood’s dark cloud.

Perfect In the Air Force I encountered a young Trotskyite on another air crew who said to me, "You know, this is an imperialist war." I was sort of shocked. I said, "Well, you're flying missions! Why are you here?" He replied, "I'm here to talk to people like you." Howard Zinn, 08 September 2005, TomDispatch.com

“Still Wondering Why They Hate Us?” 09/08/05 By Ted Rall, ICH It only took a few days for New Orleans to descend into anarchy, for the survivors of Katrina to lose hope, for disgusted Americans to conclude that their leaders are too staggeringly stupid, incompetent and uncaring to protect them from bad weather, much less a terrorist attack. Now think about this: the citizens of cities under U.S. occupation in Iraq and Afghanistan have been suffering under similar conditions, exacerbated by an identical lack of planning by the same U.S. officials, for nearly 900 days. New Orleans is Baghdad plus water minus two and a half years. Still wondering why they hate us?

“How Would You Like It If It Was Done To You?”

09/07/2005 Sam Hamod, Todays Alternative News.com. [Excerpt] In New Orleans, people who want to stay and live off of canned food and bottled water are being forcefully evacuated to who knows where and with what possible future! Why is this being done, other than it having parallels to the Japanese during WWII as well, forcefully taking people from their homes in order to take over a city and a people's property and belongings. Our citizens have the right to stay where they are, just as they do in other situations, it's their right and their responsibility--and not the right of the national police force, the national guard or the New Orleans police to roust them out and pack them out of town. How would you like it if it was done to you.

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.

Iraqis Must Decide How To Resist Occupation

Another central challenge we face is to embrace and give encouragement to soldiers, veterans, reservists, military families, and people targeted for military recruitment who are speaking out and who are resisting in increasing numbers. Anthony Arnove and Tariq Ali, July-August 2005 International Socialist Review [Excerpt] Anthony Arnove: Moving forward, we have a number of challenges. I’ll lay out what I see as some of the key ones. One is to build a movement in which political debate is not only welcomed but it is encouraged—and in which exclusionism is not tolerated. There are too many examples of people being told to tone down their message or being excluded because they have raised questions the mainstream Left would prefer to ignore. You can’t raise the question of Palestine. You can’t say “troops out now.” You can’t discuss resistance to the occupation in the military or in Iraq. You can’t use the “i word” (imperialism). We also need to build a movement that addresses head on issues of racism and Islamophobia—and the entire repackaging of the White Man’s Burden—that have been used to sell this occupation and the war on terrorism and also used to crack down on civil liberties and dissent at home. We must organize a movement that at every level is inclusive of Arabs, Muslims, and other groups that have been targeted by the war. This goes hand-in-hand with the need to reject the racist idea that it is for us in the United States (or at City University of New York or the Left Forum) to decide the future of Iraq, that Iraqis are incapable of building their own society, that we need to teach them about democracy; or dictate to them how to resist the occupation of their country. All of this amounts to saying that the people who have done so much to destroy Iraq are, in fact, the ones who know how to rebuild it. Arundhati Roy is absolutely right when she argues: “[I]t is absurd to condemn the resistance to the U.S. occupation in Iraq as being masterminded by terrorists or insurgents or supporters of Saddam Hussein. After all, if the United States were invaded and occupied, would everybody who fought to liberate it be a terrorist or an insurgent or a Bushite?... “The Iraqi resistance is fighting on the front lines of the battle against Empire. And therefore, that battle is our battle.

“Like most resistance movements, it combines a motley range of assorted factions. Former Baathists, liberals, Islamists, fed-up collaborationists, communists, etc. Of course, it is riddled with opportunism, local rivalry, demagoguery and criminality. “But if we are only going to support pristine movements, then no resistance will be worthy of our purity. “This is not to say that we shouldn’t ever criticize resistance movements. Many of them suffer from a lack of democracy from the iconization of their “leaders,” a lack of transparency, a lack of vision and direction. “But most of all, they suffer from vilification, repression and lack of resources. “Before we prescribe how a pristine Iraqi resistance must conduct their secular, feminist, democratic, nonviolent battle, we should shore up our end of the resistance by forcing the U.S. and its allied governments to withdraw from Iraq.” It is not our job to dictate to the Iraqi people what form their resistance to occupation must take. Iraqis themselves are perfectly capable of rejecting those actions that are not about liberation from occupation, but sectarian violence. The key question for the U.S. Left is not to decide which Iraqi faction has the best program, whatever political judgments we may make, but to organize against the greatest enemy, which, as John Reed reminded us, is at home. And that is an enormous task. Another central challenge we face is to embrace and give encouragement to soldiers, veterans, reservists, military families, and people targeted for military recruitment who are speaking out and who are resisting in increasing numbers. We have to link the war abroad to the war at home, on working people, the poor. The attacks on Social security, the budget cuts. The profound crisis in social spending in this country; And, lastly, we have to address the roots of war, the fact that military competition and barbarism flow naturally from capitalism. We have to start building a challenge not just to this particular brutal war, but to the entire edifice that produces war, and to speak of the urgency; the necessity, of building a different society globally, based on cooperation and human need, rather than on competition, war, and profit. Tariq Ali: Let us suppose that Iraq had been occupied and there had been no resistance at all. Let us suppose that people were sullen, they were unhappy, but that there was no armed resistance at all. Bush and Blair and their supporters would have claimed this as a big triumph and a victory. We’ve taken a whole country an Arab country, and there is no resistance. People are unhappy, but no one is fighting us—it means we’ve won.

The fact that there was an armed resistance at an early stage in Iraq was a big blow against U.S. imperial strategy. Just think about it. They thought that it was going to be a repeat of Pristina and Kosovo. They had gotten used to that kind of intervention. They were not prepared for what they encountered. And so when the resistance in Iraq started, the initial response was complete surprise. Even the media was not prepared for it. They were completely taken aback. ‘Who were the people who were resisting? There’s very little doubt about that. Layers of the Iraqi army, knowing perfectly well what Saddam Hussein was up to—and many of them have given interviews to this effect—decided that they were going to organize, separate, set up arms dumps all over the country; decentralize the army, and create units in certain parts of Iraq that would fight back when the time came. Well, I support that. It’s not only that they had the right to do that, I think it was even politically correct to do this at that critical point in time. Jalal Talabani, the new president of Iraq—who is he? He’s worked with the CIA, he’s taken money from Saddam Hussein, he’s taken money from the Iranian mullahs, and he’s taken money from the Israelis. At least his tastes are catholic. And so the first statement he makes as president of Iraq is that he wants the American occupation to continue. That’s what Talabani said: we want American troops to stay here. You can support that, if you want to. I think it’s wrong.

OCCUPATION REPORT

U.S. Command Copies Criminal Tactic Used By Hitler’s SS Troops In Occupied

France; (No Report On Whether Gas Ovens Will

Be Constructed) 9 September 2005 BBC In Talafar, air strikes were reportedly launched on a neighbourhood the Americans suspected of being under the control of insurgents. Troops were then sent in to arrest all males over the age of 20 who remained there.

[Collective punishment of civilians in an occupied territory is a criminal act, punishable by court-martial and imprisonment, which may be performed by either the occupying party, or the resisting party. Be aware.]

OCCUPATION ISN’T LIBERATION BRING ALL THE TROOPS HOME NOW!

Collaborator “President” Goes Stark Raving Mad;

Says “All” Arab Media For Terrorism

September 09, 2005 By Barry Schweid, Associated Press On Friday, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani described Iraq’s quest for stability as a difficult one, and he was skeptical of Iraq’s Arab neighbors. “All Arab media without exception are supporting terrorism,” he asserted.

LUNATIC RUMSFELD SERVANT PICKING HIS NOSE

Jalal Talabani, President Of The Green Zone, Baghdad, Iraq, picks his nose as he waits to be introduced at a news conference in Washington, September 9, 2005. He also met with his master, Donald Rumsfeld before raving incoherently that all Arab media are friendly to terrorists. His press office denied that he suffers from

tertiary stage syphilis which has infected his brain, and said he did not acquire the disease during profligate sexual liaisons, including many with small boys, which the press office said did not take place while he was in the United States REUTERS/Jason Reed

So Much For That “Sovereignty” Bullshit:

Baghdad Airport Closed; U.S. Command Caught In One More Stupid Lie As U.S. Troops Confront

Collaborator Forces The Interior Ministry sent a force to reopen the facility, but withdrew the men after they confronted U.S. soldiers at a key checkpoint along the airport road. The U.S. military, in an apparent attempt to play down the problem, said it had no information about the pay dispute or Interior Ministry force movements. 9 September 2005 (AFP) & BBC & By Sinan Salaheddin, Associated Press BAGHDAD - Baghdad International Airport was closed on Friday “until further notice” over a contract dispute between Iraq’s government and a London-based firm that provides airport security. Global Security, whose contract was awarded by the US State Department in 2004, said, “unresolved commercial issues” with Iraq’s ministry of transport, meant, “normal airport operations (were) suspended until further notice”. In a press statement, the company said it had not been paid for its services since March and therefore decided cease operations as of 06:00 am (0200 GMT) on Friday, effectively closing the airport to commercial traffic. “Once payment has been made by the client, Global will resume its work and thus allow normal air operations to resume,” the statement said, without specifying when flights might restart. A two-day shutdown occurred in June for similar reasons, leading to a back-log of flights and severe disruption for passengers. The airport, which currently has over 50 flights a day, is the only viable means of entry into Iraq for most international travellers due to the country’s volatile security situation.

The Ministry of Transport owns the sprawling airport complex 18km (12 miles) from central Baghdad. Iraqi officials say the firm is demanding too much money for security, and, if necessary, Iraqi soldiers will replace the private security guards. The Interior Ministry sent a force to reopen the facility, but withdrew the men after they confronted U.S. soldiers at a key checkpoint along the airport road. “We ordered the forces to pull back after American forces were deployed at the first checkpoint on the road. We did not want to create a confrontation,” acting Transportation Minister Esmat Amer told The Associated Press. The U.S. military, in an apparent attempt to play down the problem, said it had no information about the pay dispute or Interior Ministry force movements. Amer had said earlier that Iraqi troops had been sent to reopen the facility because its closure was illegal. He said the Cabinet approved the dispatch of Interior Ministry troops to take over from the London-based Global Strategies Group, which had provided security since last year. “This issue is related to Iraq’s sovereignty, and nobody is authorized to close the airport,” Amer told the AP.

OCCUPATION HAITI

WELCOME TO LIBERATED HAITI; HAVE A NICE DEATH

Brazilian Imperial occupation soldiers ready to kill more Haitians during military operation on a street in Port-au-Prince September 9, 2005. REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz

DANGER: POLITICIANS AT WORK

Imperial Democrat Feingold Wants More Dead And Maimed U.S. Troops: Says Don’t Bring Them Home Now

[He’s just doing his job, defending the Empire. What is despicable is that some who pretend to be leaders in the movement against the war in Iraq are pimping for this asshole, falling all over themselves sing his praises. T] 09 September 2005 Truthout Press Release [Excerpt] Senator Feingold: "This is a false choice offered by the President. The course we are on in Iraq is not sustainable, nor is it making the US more secure. At the same time, I am not in the "cut and run" or "immediate withdrawal" camp, nor do I propose a hard deadline for troop withdrawal, regardless of conditions on the ground. I believe that our military still has a mission to complete but the President needs to make clear what the mission is, and what our plan to get the job done is.

Police Terror After Katrine: First Hand Report

“Jose said that he had been in situations like that many times in his life, but that particular one was the scariest. ‘They were going to shoot you, and you’re white,’ he said. To him, that was just the most crazy situation he had ever seen.” [Thanks to PB for sending this in.] [Excerpt] Socialist Worker's Eric Ruder, Paul D'Amato and Meredith Kolodner traveled to the Gulf Coast to witness the devastation that followed in the wake of Hurricane Katrina--as well

as the grassroots relief effort that began almost immediately afterward. SW Online is posting their reports as we receive them. 4 p.m., Thursday, September 8 Home of Buddy and Annie Spell, Covington La. Buddy Spell is a longtime Louisiana hellraiser, antiwar activist and defense lawyer. He was at Camp Casey in Crawford, Texas, until the hurricane hit his house in Covington, wrecked his car and--most alarmingly--separated him and his wife Annie from their seven-year-old for five harrowing days. Thankfully they are all reunited--and safe. Buddy is a member of the Louisiana Activist Network (LAN). The Louisiana Activist Network succeeded last year in making their state the only one in the nation to require depleted uranium testing for all deployed National Guard members. “It was ethnic cleansing,” says Buddy, referring to the government’s response to Katrina’s wake. “The good news is that the Republicans will lose Congress. The bad news is that the Democrats are going to win.”

********************************************** 9 p.m., Thursday, September 8 Home of Buddy and Annie Spell, Covington La. Andrew Stern, a freelance photographer who’s been to Iraq a couple times on assignment, has been staying at Buddy and Annie’s place at night and going into New Orleans during the day. He describes horrible scenes of bodies floating in the murky water--or washed up and decomposing over the course of days. At one point, when Andy and his companion Tim were in the 9th Ward, Tim couldn’t find his keys and, becoming alarmed, started to jog towards the place he thought he had left them. Also with them was a local resident, Jose, a Black man from the area who was acting as their guide in the city and has since evacuated to Houston. When Tim ran, an unmarked white Humvee down the road a bit suddenly made its way towards them and disgorged two armed men, who pointed shotguns at their chests. Their t-shirts said POLICE, but they had nothing else that identified them. “Do you understand that looters will be shot?” screamed one of the men, most likely from the New Orleans Police Department. “I’ve been in situations like this before--with police pointing guns at me--and I wasn’t really afraid that I was going to get shot,” said Andrew. “But this time, it really seemed like they were going to shoot me. I feel like their first impulse was to shoot unless we did some really fast talking. “I said, ‘We are not looters!’ And I don’t know why, but I froze up and didn’t say anything more. My friend Jackie, who shoots for DemocracyNow! said that we were press, and then we were surrounded pretty quickly by a couple guys from Border Patrol, a couple guys from DEA, and some soldiers--about 10 men altogether, all heavily armed and pointing their guns at us. We were totally surrounded.

“Afterwards, I thought to myself that you’d have to be a pretty serious criminal to have this group of people surrounding you. They seemed to be debating whether to shoot us. They were accusing us of being looters, but we weren’t carrying anything other than a video camera--we looked like media. The only thing that I could see that would make them think we were looters was that we had a Black guy with us, and that Tim was running. “There was a Readers Digest reporter that I was working with, and they had him come forward and had him pull up his shirt, and they were asking for ID. I just shuddered, thinking that if we coughed or sneezed, that would be it. “There was one point where our stories didn’t match up, because we were saying we were press, and Tim was saying that he was with Veterans for Peace, and that was causing problems. Eventually they calmed down, probably because they saw our press IDs, and then they told us to get the fuck out of dodge, and left. “Jose said that he had been in situations like that many times in his life, but that particular one was the scariest. ‘They were going to shoot you, and you’re white,’ he said. To him, that was just the most crazy situation he had ever seen.”

Big Surprise (Not) In New Orleans

From: Tom Condit: http://www.peaceandfreedom.org Sent: September 09, 2005 Subject: Big surprise (not) in New Orleans

Old-Line Families Escape Worst Of Flood And Plot The Future September 8, 2005 By Christopher Cooper, Wall Street Journal The green expanse of Audubon Park, in the city's Uptown area, has doubled in recent days as a heliport for the city's rich -- and a terminus for the small armies of private security guards who have been dispatched to keep the homes there safe and habitable. Mr. O'Dwyer has cellphone service and ice cubes to cool off his highballs in the evening. By yesterday, the city water service even sprang to life, making the daily trips to his neighbor's pool unnecessary. A pair of oil-company engineers, dispatched by his son-in-law, delivered four cases of water, a box of delicacies including herring with mustard sauce and 15 gallons of generator gasoline. Despite the disaster that has overwhelmed New Orleans, the city's monied, mostly white elite is hanging on and maneuvering to play a role in the recovery when the floodwaters of Katrina are gone. "New Orleans is ready to be rebuilt. Let's start right here," says Mr. O'Dwyer, standing in his expansive kitchen, next to a counter covered with a jumble of weaponry and electric wires. [Gee ... I thought everyone had been ordered to leave town and the troops were confiscating all firearms. The old saying "There's one law for the rich and one for the poor" is dead wrong. There is NO LAW for the rich except the law that says they get to make the laws for the poor.-- Tom Condit]

[THIS IS NOT A SATIRE] First Responders Urged Not To Respond To Hurricane Impact Areas Unless Dispatched

By State, Local Authorities FEMA.gov/news/newsrelease.fema?id=18470 Release Date: August 29, 2005 WASHINGTON D.C. -- Michael D. Brown, Under Secretary of Homeland Security for Emergency Preparedness and Response and head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), today urged all fire and emergency services departments not to respond to counties and states affected by Hurricane Katrina

without being requested and lawfully dispatched by state and local authorities under mutual aid agreements and the Emergency Management Assistance Compact.

THEY GOT IT RIGHT

From Irish TV [Thanks to Mary Runnells, who sent this in.]

As Money Cut For New Orleans Flood Control, Corps Of Engineers

Got $6.4 Billion For Iraq September 9, 2005 Sheila Samples, Smirkingchimp.com [Excerpt] With warnings ringing in his ears, in 2004 Bush refused the money requested to raise the levees and rejected a plea for a $15-million project to shore up the banks of Lake Pontchartrain. And, in June, Bush's 2006 federal budget called for slashing SELA funds from an already inadequate $36.5-million to a mere $10.4-million, and for cutting the overall New Orleans Corps of Engineers budget a record $71.2-million, which Corps officials say is the largest single-year funding loss ever.

But all is not lost. The Corps of Engineers managed to get a hefty $100-million for just one water project -- in the Kurdish area of northern Iraq. According to the peerless Ward Harkavy, who writes The Morning Report for the Village Voice, "On August 15, just two weeks before Katrina slammed into the U.S., the Pentagon boasted of spending $6.4-billion -- so far -- on 2,705 Corps of Engineers construction projects in Iraq, all but 200 of them started since June 2004." If printed out, this newsletter is your personal property and cannot legally be confiscated from you. “Possession of unauthorized material may not be prohibited.” DoD Directive 1325.6 Section 3.5.1.2.