“Nobody”

June 6, 2009 By Liz Sly, Los Angeles Times [Two excerpts]

[First two paragraphs]

Reporting from Baghdad -- When the combat outpost in northwest Baghdad known as Joint Security Station Hurriya 2 closes Sunday, it won't be a day too soon for the 180 or so U.S. soldiers based there.

"There's not much to do around here, and we go stir-crazy sometimes," said Army Spc. Corey Hessler, 22, who is looking forward to the fast-food outlets and air-conditioned barracks that await him on the vast Camp Victory base beside Baghdad's airport.

[Last two paragraphs]

And the soldiers, some of whom are on their fourth tour of duty, say they're tired too.

If this retreat doesn't work, few will be keen to make another push back into the city.

"Nobody wants to come back here," Pfc. Devlin Lasiter said.

"It's been six years, and if now is not the right time, it never will be right."

May 2009: 25 Down

It’s Been 11 Months Since More U.S. Troops Were Killed In Iraq

[Thanks to Carl Foster, Military Project, who sent this in.]

1 June 2009 BBC & Iraq Coalition Casualties Report & Wire Services

US forces in Iraq suffered their worst casualties last month since 29 were killed in June, 2008.  The 25 soldiers killed in May tied with the number for September 2008.

That brings the total number of US casualties since the 2003 invasion to just over 4,300.

Period    US Dead

5-2009     25

4-2009     19

3-2009       9

2-2009     17

1-2009     16

12-2008   14

11-2008   17

10-2008   14

9-2008     25

8-2008     23

7-2008     13

6-2008     29

U.S. Convoy Ambushed In Faluja, Military Vehicle On Fire;

Casualties Not Announced

6.6.09 DPA

An explosion in Faluja targeted a US convoy the previous night, Iraqi police said, setting a military vehicle on fire.  Police said they had no information on US casualties in that attack, and the US military did not immediately confirm the incident.

The US military did say that a US Marine had died in a 'non-combat related incident' in the western Iraqi province on Friday, but provided no further details.

Resistance Action:

The Resistance Rises Again In Falluja & Ramadi

June 3 (Reuters) & June 5 (Reuters) & 6.6.09 DPA & Reuters

A bomb attached to a vehicle killed a police captain in Ramadi, 100 km (60 miles) west of Baghdad, police said.

A car bomber wounded the Anbar police chief, Major-General Tariq Yusuf, and five other people in Ramadi, police said.

A roadside bomb killed three militia soldiers north of the western Iraqi city of Faluja in Anbar Province on Friday night, police said Saturday.  The brother of the leader of the U.S.-allied local 'Sahwa' or 'Awakening' militia was among the three killed when the explosion blew up their car in the district of al-Karama, police told the German Press Agency dpa.

Insurgents killed one policeman and wounded another in Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.

A grenade attack targeting an Iraqi army patrol killed one Iraqi soldier in Diyala province in the east of the country, the U.S. military said in a statement.

HOW MANY MORE FOR OBAMA’S WARS?

The remains of Army Cpl. Ryan C. McGhee, of Fredericksburg, Va., at Dover Air Force Base in Dover, Del. May 14, 2009.  McGhee died of wounds received from small-arms fire in central Iraq.  (AP Photo/Pat Crowe II)

UNREMITTING HELL ON EARTH;

ALL HOME NOW

A U.S. soldier inspects rockets which were found during a search operation in Hilla, 100 km (62 miles) south of Baghdad May 3, 2009.  Police found rockets ready to launch at the U.S. consulate in Hilla.  REUTERS/Stringer

AFGHANISTAN WAR REPORTS

Foreign Occupation Soldier Killed Somewhere Or Other In Afghanistan;

Nationality Not Announced

June 6 (KUNA)

A soldier of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) was killed in southern Afghanistan on Saturday.  Spokesperson for the multinational force Brigadier-General Richard Blanchette said the soldier died as a result of a hostile incident.  The ISAF headquarters did not release name and nationality of the slain soldier. Exact location of the incident was also not disclosed.

Texas Reserve Counterintelligence Lt. Col. Who Served Three Years With Israeli Army Killed Near Kabul;

In Afghanistan Working For MPRI Intelligence And Security Corporation

May 23, 2009 Shawn M. Pine, Associated Press & Wire Reports

A San Antonio man working as a security contractor in Afghanistan was killed Wednesday when his SUV hit a roadside bomb near Kabul.

Army Reserve Lt. Col. Shawn M. Pine was working for Alexandria, Va.-based MPRI in Afghanistan at the time, the San Antonio Express-News reported in its Saturday editions.

He served in a counterintelligence detachment at Fort Sam Houston and commanded the Army Reserve’s now defunct Austin-based 300th Military Intelligence Company from 1999 to 2002.

Pine recently returned from Israel where he was a Ph.D. candidate in international relations at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

He received a Master of Arts degree in Middle Eastern studies from the University of Texas at Austin and holds a Bachelor of Science in Foreign Service degree from Georgetown University.

Prior to attending Georgetown University, he served three years in the Golani Brigade of Israeli Defense Forces.

He completed nine years active duty as an officer in the United States Army and served in a myriad of positions including: serving with the Multinational Force and Observers mission in Sinai, Egypt, commanding a mountain training camp at Fort Lewis, Washington, and serving as detachment commander of the Fort Sam Houston Counterintelligence detachment, San Antonio, Texas.

Good News For The Afghan Resistance!!

U.S. Occupation Commands’ Crude, Stupid, Humiliating Armed Terror Tactics Recruit Even More Fighters To Kill U.S. Troops

Foreign occupation troops from the U.S. force humiliate Afghan citizens by forcing them at gunpoint to submit to ID and fingerprinting in the village of Ashak.  Photograph: Sean Smith, Guardian News and Media Limited.  [Thanks to JM, who sent this in.]

[Fair is fair.  Let’s bring 50,000 Afghan troops over here to the USA.  They can kill people at checkpoints, bust into their houses with force and violence, butcher their families, overthrow the government, put a new one in office they like better and call it “sovereign,” and “detain” anybody who doesn’t like it in some prison without any charges being filed against them, or any trial.]

[Those Afghans are sure a bunch of backward primitives. 

[They actually resent this help, have the absurd notion that it’s bad their country is occupied by a foreign military dictatorship, and consider it their patriotic duty to fight and kill the soldiers sent to grab their country. 

[What a bunch of silly people.  How fortunate they are to live under a military dictatorship run by Barrack Obama.  Why, how could anybody not love that?  You’d want that in your home town, right?]

TROOP NEWS

Obama’s Eternal Imperial Bloodbath In High Gear:

141,997 National Guard And Reserve Personnel Called To Active Duty As Of June 2, 2009

[Thanks to Elaine Brower, Military Project, who sent this in.

June 03, 2009 U.S. Department of Defense, Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Public Affairs)

National Guard (In Federal Status) and Reserve Activated as of June 2, 2009

This week the Army, Navy, and Air Force announced an increase, while the Marine Corps and Coast Guard announced a decrease.  The net collective result is 1,016 more reservists activated than last week.

The total number currently on active duty from the Army National Guard and Army Reserve is 109,976; Navy Reserve, 6,712; Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve, 15,435; Marine Corps Reserve, 9,121; and the Coast Guard Reserve, 753. 

This brings the total National Guard and Reserve personnel who have been activated to 141,997, including both units and individual augmentees.

Marine Recruiter Charged With Pimping Girl, 14:

“Police Are Trying To Determine If Cunningham May Have Been Using The Girl To Entice Marine Recruits”

Jun 2 AP

HEMET, Calif. – Police have arrested a U.S. Marine Corps recruiter on charges of felony pimping and kidnapping and are looking into whether he used sex with a 14-year-old girl to entice potential recruits.

Staff Sgt. Bryan Damone Cunningham, 33, of San Pedro pleaded not guilty to seven felonies last Thursday after police in Orange discovered the teenage girl in a car with Cunningham and two other men. The two men, ages 18 and 19, were potential Marine recruits, police said.

The girl, who has since been returned to her parents in Hemet, told police that she met Cunningham online and had sex with all three men. She also told police Cunningham wanted her to work as a prostitute and had tried to take her to Los Angeles County against her will.

Police said they are trying to determine if Cunningham may have been using the girl to entice Marine recruits.

"It's not proven ... but when you look at it, this is a grown man, a Marine staff sergeant," said Hemet police Lt. Joe Nevarez. "Why would he be taking them out to have sex with a 14-year-old girl?"

The two potential Marine recruits face felony charges on having sex with a minor.

Cunningham is being held on $1 million bail and has a court hearing June 18, said John Hall, a spokesman for the Riverside County district attorney's office.

MORE:

Enraged By Wars In Iraq And Afghanistan, Arkansas Man Opens Fire On Army Recruiters;

One Dead, One Wounded

[Thanks to SSG N (ret’d) & Katherine G, The Military Project, who sent this in.]

June 1, 2009 By STEVE BARNES and JAMES DAO, The New York Times Company [Excerpts]

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — A 23-year-old man upset about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan opened fire from his truck at two soldiers standing outside a military recruiting station here on Monday morning, killing one private and wounding another, the police said.

The gunman, identified by the police as Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad of Little Rock, fled the scene and was arrested minutes later a short distance from the recruiting station, in a bustling suburban shopping center.  The police confiscated a Russian-made SKS semiautomatic rifle, a .22-caliber rifle and a handgun from his black pickup truck.

The two privates, who were both from Arkansas, were in Little Rock as part of a recruiting program that typically uses soldiers recently out of basic training to promote the Army in their home regions, Army officials said.

The dead soldier was identified as Pvt. William A. Long, 23, of Conway, about 30 miles north of Little Rock. The other victim, Pvt. Quinton Ezeagwula, 18, was in stable condition at Baptist Medical Center, Chief Stuart Thomas of the Little Rock Police Department said.

In a lengthy interview with the police, Mr. Muhammad said he was angry about the killing of Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan, Chief Thomas said. Previously known as Carlos Bledsoe, Mr. Muhammad told investigators that he had converted to Islam as a teenager, Chief Thomas said.

Chief Thomas said investigators believe that Mr. Muhammad acted alone.  He seemed to be familiar with the Army recruiting office because it was not far from his home, the chief said, but might have been on the prowl for anyone in uniform.

“I would say he was looking for any and all targets of opportunity that happened to be military,” the chief said in a telephone interview. “That may have well been the first place he found.”

Mr. Muhammad will be charged with one count of capital murder and 15 counts of terroristic acts, one for each person who was hit or endangered by the shots he fired. Thirteen people were in the recruiting office at the time.

Chief Thomas said Mr. Muhammad had previously lived in Memphis and Nashville and moved to Little Rock just a few months ago, possibly to work at his parents’ tour company.

At Mr. Muhammad’s apartment complex in west Little Rock, a collection of low-rise buildings known as Bristol Park, residents said they were evacuated for four hours on Monday while the police searched Mr. Muhammad’s apartment.

Though many at the apartment complex said they did not know him, two people, who declined to give their names, said Mr. Muhammad often wore a uniform, possibly for work.

A witness to the shooting, Lance P. Luplow, said he was parking his car in front of his house across the street from the recruiting office when he heard about seven loud bangs and looked up to see the black truck with tinted windows speeding away, its tailgate down and bottles of water rolling from the flatbed into the street.

Mr. Luplow, 26, said he ran across the street to the recruiting station, where he saw one soldier in fatigues lying still in a pool of blood, while a second one was crawling into the station, holding a bloodied ear.

“He was saying, ‘Tell me this isn’t real, tell me this isn’t real,’ ” Mr. Luplow said.

He said other soldiers from the station had tried to stop the bleeding and performed CPR on the victims before ambulances arrived.

FORWARD OBSERVATIONS

“At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed.  Oh had I the ability, and could reach the nation’s ear, I would, pour out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke.

“For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder.

“We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake.”

Frederick Douglass, 1852

My Lie

From: Mike Hastie

To: GI Special

Sent: May 25, 2009

Subject: My Lie

                                 My Lie

The My Lai Massacre became, " My Lie," as a

metaphor for what America did to the Vietnamese.

So many people want to separate our government's

actions from the American people. We were all

complicit in the Vietnam War. You cannot separate

the people from their government in a democracy.

When you don't want to know the truth about what

your government is doing, that is a form of violence.

What we don't know won't hurt us, is one of the great

lies of human behavior. 504 innocent Vietnamese

people were murdered in our name on March 16, 1968.

Fast forward forty years, and America is doing it all

over again in the Middle East.

And, the American people don't want to know it.

When you search and destroy your own history,

you burn your own village down.

America is burning right in front of us.

                                            Mike Hastie

                                            Vietnam Veteran

                                            Memorial Day 2009

“As Someone I Served With Once Said, The Point Is Not To Support The Troops, But To Understand Us”

The U.S. Government Defines Post-Traumatic Stress As A Disorder:

“In Reality, Coming Home After Witnessing Or Taking Part In The Killing Of Other Human Beings And Being Able To Feel Completely Fine With It Is A Disorder”

June 4, 2009 By Phil Aliff [Iraq Veterans Against The War], Socialist Worker [Excerpts]

THERE ARE moments in every person's life that define who we are. These moments are like scars that we bear to show not only where we have been, but also receipts showing that we have paid our debt for being alive. 

Combat is one human experience that is guaranteed to change you.

While smoking a cigarette in my backyard, Jason said something so obvious, yet at the same time so profound.  It helped me to contextualize the spectrum of emotions that I am faced with every day.

"I don't want to freak you out or anything, but you should be dead, man."

Of course, at face value, this is a response that anyone would have when faced with the reality that one has experienced combat.  But stepping forward toward its logical conclusion, one can say that there are a lot of feelings involved with trying to figure out why you didn't die.

I don't believe that I am alive today because some spiritual being had a greater plan for me.  I don't believe that I am alive due to divine intervention.

As an infantryman in the United States Army, I have learned one simple truth. When your time is up, it's up. There are no second chances. There is no restart button.

After searching for the answer to this question, I have realized that I am alive today simply because of a roadside bomb being buried too deep or inaccurate gunfire due to the person firing the weapon being just as scared as we were.  I am not a hero because I lived.  I am just lucky.

Staff Sgt. Lewis was not so lucky.

I remember when they placed his body on the helicopter after he was mortally wounded by a bullet to the neck. As I watched through my night vision, I remember thinking to myself that I would carry this memory without remorse, because Lewis would not be able to carry it himself. His wife was in the military and deployed to Afghanistan when he died. It took them weeks to locate and notify her.

This firefight happened only moments after my platoon returned from a patrol that was disorienting and frustrating because we could not locate and kill the Iraqis who were ambushing us on an almost daily basis.

When you cannot inflict casualties on the enemy, you learn that there are no limits to the level of human rage. 

It is the kind of rage that eats away at you.  It is like a disease that tears you apart from the inside.

**********************************

[Comment on the above: T]

[Add to that the dawning realization that the enemy is the government that sent the soldier to fight for no good cause, but in a crude war for Empire, and add to that the rage generated by the associated feelings of complete betrayal.