May 1, 1886:

Noble Anniversary:

American Workers Create May Day

Carl Bunin Peace History April 30-May 6

May Day was called Emancipation Day in 1886 when 340,000 went on strike (though it was Saturday it was a regular workday) in Chicago for the 8-hour day.

May 1, 1890:  May Day labor demonstrations spread to thirteen other countries; 30,000 marched in Chicago as the newly prominent American Federation of Labor threw its weight behind the 8-hour day campaign.

International Workers’ Day (a name used interchangeably with May Day) is a celebration of the social and economic achievements of the international labor movement.

May Day commonly sees organized street demonstrations and street marches by millions of working people and their labour unions throughout most of the countries of the world

May Day has become an international celebration of the social and economic achievements of the labour movement.

May 1, 2009 San Francisco:

“For Workers Solidarity To Stop Government Repression”

Members of the International Longshore Warehouse Union participate in a May Day rally at Dolores Park in San Francisco, California May 1, 2009.  REUTERS/Robert Galbraith

May 1, 2009 San Francisco:

Victoria Siempre

People fill Broadway during a march and rally for immigration law reform in Los Angeles Friday, May 1, 2009.  Organizers are urging passage of an immigration law that provides a path to citizenship for the nation’s estimated 12 million illegal immigrants.  (AP Photo/Reed Saxon)

IRAQ WAR REPORTS

Three U.S. Troops Killed In Anbar

May 1, 2009 Multi National Corps Iraq Public Affairs Office, Camp Victory RELEASE No. 20090501-01

AL ANBAR PROVINCE, Iraq – Two Marines and one sailor were killed while conducting combat operations against enemy forces here April 30.

The Great Iraqi Army Maintenance Training Fiasco:

$628 Million Spent, 8,000 Humvees Given Away, And The Result Is Pure Clusterfuck;

“Iraqi Soldiers Abandoned A 90-Day Maintenance Training Class Because They Hadn’t Been Paid In Weeks By Their Units”

Apr 29, 2009 By Chelsea J. Carter, The Associated Press

BAGHDAD — Iraq is falling far behind schedule in creating a system to maintain its own military equipment, costing American taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars to fill in the gaps, according to a new U.S. audit.

The U.S. has spent billions of dollars to develop Iraq’s security forces with an emphasis in recent years on developing Iraq’s maintenance and supply capabilities — seen as essential for the country to maintain a self-sufficient force after the lifeline from Washington is trimmed back.

But the audit — by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction — found a pattern of negligence and shortcomings by the Iraqi military in planning for the basic needs of the military: repairing and maintaining equipment and supplying troops.

The problems include not allocating enough funds for logistics operations and failing to provide enough soldiers for training, the audit said.

In one case, Iraqi soldiers abandoned a 90-day maintenance training class in March 2008 because they hadn’t been paid in weeks by their units.

The report said the Iraqi army has not yet assigned other soldiers to take a class.

Initially, the contract costs were put at about $208 million to train Iraqi soldiers in routine but critical roles that include repairing equipment, construction and running warehouse operations.

The audit says the contract has ballooned to more than $628 million in part because there was no clear blueprint for the programs, which led to frequent extensions and cost overruns.

Col. Mike Sage, the assistant chief of staff for logistics for Multi-National Security Transition Command, said developers of a Humvee maintenance training program believed Iraqi commanders would jump at the chance to have their soldiers learn how to care for the armored vehicles.

As part of the contracts, the U.S. gave Iraq more than 8,000 armored Humvees.

“We did not read the commanders as well as we thought,” he said. “They would not commit soldiers to train on (Humvees)” because they didn’t want to give up the troops for the 90-day classes.

The report recommended the U.S. military negotiate a firm agreement with the Iraqi government on a timetable to take over maintenance responsibilities. An earlier draft of the audit recommended withholding further U.S. funds until an accord was reached.

But the U.S. military said disrupting or stopping any training projects already in progress would be a strategic error.

“It relies on Iraqis themselves to put forth the effort to make themselves successful,” Sage said.

AFGHANISTAN WAR REPORTS

Three U.S. Troops Killed When Insurgents Storm Military Outpost In Kunar:

Two Latvian Troops Also Dead

5.1.09 AFP & AP & BBC

Three US and two Latvian troops were killed when insurgents stormed a military outpost in northeastern Afghanistan Friday, officials said, in the deadliest incident for foreign forces here in months.

The militants attacked a small remote outpost of soldiers in the mountainous northeastern province of Kunar near the border with Pakistan, US military spokeswoman Captain Elizabeth Mathias told AFP.

The Latvian army announced in Riga that two of its soldiers were killed and two wounded.

The Afghan ministry of defence spokesman, General Mohammad Zahir Azimi, announced earlier Friday that Afghan troops had come under attack in Kunar’s rugged Ghaziabad district and three soldiers were killed and two wounded.

It could not immediately be confirmed if it was the same incident but that appeared likely. The Taliban had claimed responsibility.

About 30 soldiers were stationed in the outpost, Mathias said.

It was the deadliest toll for foreign soldiers in a single incident in Afghanistan since an August 18 attack on French troops left 10 of them dead and 21 wounded.

Insurgents attacked with rocket-propelled grenades and guns, NATO forces said in a statement.

A spokeswoman told Reuters news agency the insurgents had attacked an outpost in eastern Afghanistan earlier on Friday and struck an ammunition store, causing an explosion.

P.E.I. Soldier Wounded In Afghanistan

April 30, 2009 CBC News

A 24-year-old soldier from Cardigan, P.E.I., [Canada] was wounded earlier this week in Afghanistan.

Capt. Tyler Collings is based with Lord Strathcona’s Horse in Edmonton, and was training Afghan soldiers.  His mother Valerie Collings told CBC News Thursday she understands her son was on foot when a bomb went off nearby.

Collings has a serious eye wound and has lost a few teeth.

Some of the Afghan soldiers Collings was with were killed and others were wounded, she said.

Collings is being transported to a hospital in Germany Thursday evening.

Four German Troops Wounded In Ali Abad

The damaged German armored personnel carrier is transported away following an attack in Ali Abad district of Kunduz province, north of Kabul, Afghanistan, April 29, 2009. The bomber jumped in front of the German vehicle, wounding four German troops, the NATO-led force said.  (AP Photo)

The War At Firebase Vimoto

May 1, 2009 By C. J. CHIVERS, The New York Times Company

FIREBASE VIMOTO, Afghanistan — Three stone houses and a cluster of sandbagged bunkers cling to a slope above the Korangal Valley, forming an oval perimeter roughly 75 yards long. The oval is reinforced with timber and ringed with concertina wire.

An Afghan flag flutters atop a tower where Afghan soldiers look out, ducking when rifle shots snap by.

This is Firebase Vimoto, named for Pfc. Timothy R. Vimoto, an American soldier killed in the valley two years ago. If all goes according to the Pentagon’s plan, this tiny perimeter — home to an Afghan platoon and two Marine Corps infantrymen — contains the future of Afghanistan. The Obama administration hopes that eventually the Afghan soldiers within will become self-sufficient, allowing the fight against the Taliban to be shifted to local hands.

For now this vulnerable little land claim — in the hostile village of Babeyal and supported by a network of American infantry positions nearby — offers something else: a fine-grained glimpse inside the Afghan war, and the remarkably young men often at the front of it.

There are nearly 30 Afghan soldiers here. Their senior mentor, Cpl. Sean P. Conroy, of Carmel, N.Y., is 25 years old. His assistant, Lance Cpl. Brandon J. Murray, of Fort Myers, Fla., is 21.

On the ground, far from the generals in Kabul and the policy makers in Washington, the hour-by-hour conduct of the war rests in part in the deeds of men this young, who have been given latitude to lead as their training and instincts guide them.

Each day they organize and walk Afghan Army patrols in the valley below, some of the most dangerous acreage in the world. Each night they participate in radio meetings with the American posts along the ridges, exchanging plans and intelligence, and plotting the counterinsurgency effort in the ancient villages below.

In Corporal Conroy’s war, two Marines train Afghans in weapons, tactics, first aid, hygiene and leadership. They keep the firebase supplied with ammunition, water, batteries and food. They defecate in a rusting barrel and urinate in a tube that slopes off a roof and drains into the air. Fly strips surround them. They have no running water; their sleeping bunker stinks of filthy clothes and sweat.

The corporal has tied a flea collar through his belt loops; he needs it like a dog. He served two tours in Iraq. His four-year enlistment ended last month, but he extended for nine months when promised he would be assigned to a combat outpost in Afghanistan.

He hopes to attend college later. For now, he represents a class of Marine and soldier that has quietly populated the ranks since 2003. He enlisted not to pick up job skills or to travel the world at government expense. He enlisted to fight. “We’re the new generation,” he said. “I’ll tell you what — there are a lot of young Marines who’ve seen more combat than all of the guys up top who joined in the ‘90s.”

He is supremely cocky, but unpretentious. When he met two journalists from The New York Times he asked what news agency they represented. Hearing the answer, he replied with one extended syllable: “Boooooo.” He prefers a good tabloid, he said.

He does not hide that he likes his life here: the senior man in an isolated post, surrounded by the Taliban, waking to a new patrol every day and drilling what he calls the Alamo Plan, to be executed if the firebase is overrun.

“This is the sweetest deal ever,” he said one evening between firefights. “There is no other place I could get a job like this — not at this rank.”

He woke the next day before 4 a.m. for a patrol. As he slipped into his ammunition vest, he groused that back home, when conversations drift to the war, the infantry too often is misunderstood. “You know what I don’t like about America?” he said, in the chill beneath lingering stars. “If you do what I do, then they think either you should have PTSD or you are some sort of psychopath.” PTSD is post-traumatic stress disorder.

He exhaled cigarette smoke. “This is my job,” he said. “There’s nothing wrong with it.”

The war in Afghanistan defies generalization. Each province, each valley and each village can be its own universe, presenting its own problems and demanding its own solutions.

In large areas of the countryside, the Americans try the softer touch of local engagement: distributing aid, seeking allies and coaching a nascent government to provide services on its own. Corporal Conroy and Lance Corporal Murray drew a different sort of assignment.

Here there is no Afghan government. The valley long ago sank into an old-school fight. Whether and how the contest for the Korangal can be shifted into something different, through negotiations, force or a counterinsurgency campaign, is not clear.

For now, the villages are eerily empty of men between the ages of 15 and 45. They are in the forests and mountains, from where they stage attacks and disrupt efforts at aid and development. They appear openly only on Fridays, when they gather without weapons at mosques, one of which is 150 yards from the firebase. The Afghan soldiers sometimes visit the mosque to pray at the same time, and the two sides eye each other warily, sharing a sacred space in a lull between fights.

The firefights between the insurgents and the Americans vary widely. Some are a few rifle shots or bursts of machine gun fire. Others are intensive ambushes of foot patrols. Many are attacks on American outposts and firebases. Sometimes all the firebases are struck at once.

In all, Corporal Conroy said, in five months here, he and Lance Corporal Murray have been attacked more than 70 times. He said he respected the insurgents’ courage, but was grateful that most of them lacked an essential skill.

“They are experienced and understand the principles of the ambush,” he said. “But they are not very good shots. If these guys knew how to shoot like even the U.S. Army, we would be taking 50 percent casualties on all of our patrols.”

He looked himself over. “Not a scratch yet,” he said. He balled his left hand into a fist and knocked on a sagging plywood table, warding off the jinx.

How effective the American training mission will be is unclear. The corporal said it would be years before the Afghan Army was ready to operate independently full time. But he said he had seen reason for optimism.

The Afghan captain who worked here until early April was overweight, lazy and rarely left the firebase. He used Afghan infantryman as valets. “I expected to come in and find the soldiers dropping grapes in his mouth,” Corporal Conroy said.

“Or fanning him with a palm branch,” said Lance Corporal Murray.

A new Afghan lieutenant rotated in last week. He is neat and lean, and has shown self-discipline and tactical sense. The Marines celebrated his arrival by buying a chestnut-and-white bull.

The Afghan soldiers bound the animal’s legs and flipped it onto its side. A soldier worked a blade across its throat. These Afghan soldiers eat meat once every two or three weeks. Tonight they would feast.

They were palpably happy. “Let Barack Obama come here and kill a cow for us,” one said. The rest laughed.

Corporal Conroy watched until the jokes subsided. War, like politics, is local. He reminded the Afghans that a platoon looked out for itself, and that he was the senior American on hand. “You don’t need Obama here,” he said. “I bought the cow.”

Notes >From A Lost War:

Brilliant U.S. Officer Tell Afghans Occupation Will Never, Ever End:

“The People’s Sympathies For Now Are With The Insurgents”

“The Americans Have The Watches, But The Taliban Have The Time”

Apr 30, 2009 By Fisnik Abrashi, The Associated Press [Excerpts]

TANGI VALLEY, Afghanistan — Only a few Afghan villagers waved as the new American forces patrolled deep into this valley, a warning sign even in a region not exactly known for its love for foreign troops.

As the 10th Mountain Division troops moved slowly down a rocky road that cuts through high cliffs and fertile land in the central province of Wardak, what awaited them were not smiles.

It was a bomb.

Fortunately, nobody was hurt.

In the Tangi Valley — a region just 40 miles south of Kabul that newly deployed U.S. troops entered this year — the people’s sympathies for now are with the insurgents.

That’s why Lt. Col. Kimo Gallahue, the commander of the 3rd Brigade’s 2nd Battalion, 87th Infantry Regiment, has been traveling this narrow stretch of road that passes by wheat fields, apple trees and small villages.

He clears the road of bombs and tells any Afghan willing to listen that the Americans are here to stay.  [Counterinsurgency 101:  Do not, above all, tell really stupid lies.  People either think you’re stupid, or that you think they’re stupid.  Game over.  T]

The province is critical to Kabul’s security and the flow of the country’s commerce along Afghanistan’s main highway.

More than 50 roadside bombs went off on the Wardak stretch of Highway 1 last year, so the deployment has become an important test case of what a surge in troops can do to reverse such violence.

Many of the armored vehicles under Gallahue’s command have been hit by roadside bombs.  Firefights are common.  But with the extra troops at hand, Gallahue says he will now hold ground, an important part of U.S. counterinsurgency strategy to make the local population confident that security will last.  [The only ground they’ll hold is the ground they stand on at any given moment.  Ask the Russians.]

A common argument used by insurgents is that they will outlast the Americans, an idea best captured in a phrase often repeated here: “The Americans have the watches, but the Taliban have the time.”

In Wardak, Gallahue is the bad cop. He is the infantry commander whose troops fight to secure areas where the Taliban roam.

The hope is that the good cop — Lt. Col. Michael Gabel, commander of the 4th Battalion, 25 Field Artillery regiment — can step in.

Gabel, a 40-year-old father of four from New York state, is a field artillery commander who works closely with the province’s governor to help with economic development and bolster the Afghan security forces.

While Gabel sat cross-legged inside a whitewashed building in Sayed Abad with local leaders, across the hill in Chak Valley a roadside bomb hit a vehicle in Gallahue’s unit, sparking a fight in which drones, attack helicopters and aircraft beat back the militants. Explosions reverberated around the rolling brown hills.  More than a dozen insurgents were reportedly killed.

Gallahue and his men know that the Tangi Valley has not been kind to foreign troops.

An entire Soviet military division was bogged down and defeated here in the 1980s, American officers say.

And last year militants used a roadside bomb and rocket-propelled grenades to kill three U.S. troops and their Afghan translator and then mutilate the body of at least one of the victims.

With its cave and high vegetation, the terrain favors the insurgents.  The narrow gorge is the main land-bridge between the provinces of Logar and Wardak.

So it was no surprise when a mission Sunday to clear the eight-mile stretch of road and surrounding fields of any bombs took over nine hours. 

Taking territory back is hard labor best done on foot.

The mission’s dangers were apparent early.  Soon after entering the valley, a roadside bomb exploded 300 yards in front of the lead U.S. vehicle, scooping a large crater out of the road but hitting no soldiers.

“They might have wanted to stop us, or someone lost his nerve too early,” Gallahue said of the detonation.

As his troops walked slowly down the road and then through the wheat fields and apple orchards, few people waved — a typical Afghan greeting and a sign that soldiers use to know whether they are in friendly territory.  Gallahue occasionally jumped from his armored vehicle to shake hands with weary shopkeepers. 

“We will not leave,” Gallahue told two of them in the village of Zamuch, hoping his words would reach others. 

One of the shopkeepers, an elderly man wearing a traditional tunic, complained that American troops only create problems for him and his business, just as the Taliban do. Bombs go off, and firefights send people scurrying for cover.

“The difference this time is that we are here to stay,” Gallahue responded.  [So, telling the Afghans you’re never going to leave is supposed to win their hearts and minds.  Right, they just love the idea of eternal occupation.  Wouldn’t you?]

“The Only Safe Road Out Of Kabul Is To The North”

“All Other Roads Around The Capital Are Permanently Or Intermittently Under Taliban Control”

April 29, 2009 PATRICK COCKBURN, CounterPunch [Excerpts]

Hamid Karzai, who played host to the British prime minister, Gordon Brown, in Kabul two days ago, will have been delighted to hear the Prime Minister confirm the long-standing Afghan belief that there can be no long-term success against the Taliban in southern Afghanistan so long as they base themselves in Pakistan.

The most serious deterioration in security in the last year has been on the roads leading from Kabul.

"A year ago I was able to go to my village in Logar province 60 miles south of Kabul, but now I would not dare go because the Taliban would kill me for having links with the government," said one Afghan journalist, who does not want his name published.

"Groups of six or eight Taliban, riding motorcycles, set up mobile checkpoints and look for government employees or people connected with non-government organizations.  If they find them, they shoot them."

"We are confident that we are shouldering our share of the burden," Mr Brown said.

Despite Mr Brown’s tough words, the ability of the Taliban to control or contest almost all of southern Afghanistan outside the cities will be difficult to reverse.

The only safe road out of Kabul is to the north, through the Salang tunnel, eventually leading to Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

All other roads around the capital are permanently or intermittently under Taliban control. The father of the Education Minister was recently kidnapped when he went to attend a family funeral in his home province.

Afghan Resistance Statement Regarding The Start Of New Nasrat (Victory) Operations:

“The Targets Of These Operations Will Be The Military Units Of The Invading Forces, Diplomatic Centers, Mobile Convoys, High-Ranking Officials Of The Puppet Administration”

April 29, 2009 Theunjustmedia.com via Uruknet

Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan

In the name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate

1. Since America and NATO have resolved to send extra troops to Afghanistan, therefore, the Afghans too in response feel the need to start rapid and strong operations, as part of their struggle, to defend themselves and to free the country.

2. Beginning 30 April 2009, which corresponds to 10 Sowr (Ghwayi) 1388, the Mujahideen of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan will start the new Nasrat operations throughout Afghanistan.

These operations will include ambushes, offensives, explosions, martyrdom-seeking attacks and surprise attacks.

The targets of these operations will be the military units of the invading forces, diplomatic centers, mobile convoys, high-ranking officials of the puppet administration.

2. The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan once again calls on all military, security and administrative officials of the Kabul puppet administration to refrain from working for this slave administration and to help the Mujahideen.

If they cannot do the latter, then at least they should wait until the establishment of a true Islamic government and should no longer support the invading infidels and should not prolong the occupation of beloved Afghanistan with their service.

3. The Islamic Emirate once again warns private construction companies, transport companies, contractors, owners of vehicles and drivers, who build military centers for the infidel invaders and their internal slaves and transport military equipment, fuel and other logistical goods, that they should completely stop and end such dealings with the invading Americans and their puppet administration because providing such services to the infidels and the puppet administration harms Islam and the homeland, strengthens the enemies and prolongs the occupation of Afghanistan.

However, if despite repeated warnings, the owners and workers of construction and transport companies continue such unpatriotic and un-Islamic deeds, the Mujahideen will take action against such inadmissible deeds, and if something happens to them as a result of these actions, then responsibility will lie with them.

THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO COMPREHENSIBLE REASON TO BE IN THIS EXTREMELY HIGH RISK LOCATION AT THIS TIME, EXCEPT THAT THE PACK OF TRAITORS THAT RUN THE GOVERNMENT IN D.C. WANT YOU THERE TO DEFEND THEIR IMPERIAL DREAMS:

That is not a good enough reason.

4.3.09:  A US Army humvee is seen during a patrol on the outskirts of Naray in Nuristan province, Afghanistan.  (AFP/Liu Jin)

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