IRAQ WAR REPORTS

Michigan Marine Killed In Iraq

Lance Cpl. Minhee Kim, of Ann Arbor, Mich., 20, who was assigned to Marine Forces Reserve's 1st Battalion, 24th Marine Regiment, 4th Marine Division, from Lansing, Mich., died Nov. 1, 2006, in Iraq, the military said. (AP Photo/Kim Family)

Three U.S. Soldiers Killed By Baghdad IED

Nov. 3, 2006 Multi-National Division Baghdad PAO RELEASE No. 20061103-01

BAGHDAD: Three Multi-National Division Baghdad Soldiers died at approximately 2:15 p.m. Thursday when the vehicle they were riding in was struck by an improvised-explosive device in eastern Baghdad.

Marine Killed in Anbar

Nov. 3, 2006 Multi-National Corps West PAO RELEASE No. 20061103-02

CAMP FALLUJAH, Iraq:  One Marine assigned to Regimental Combat Team 5 died from injuries sustained due to enemy action Thursday while operating in Al Anbar Province.

Soldier Killed At Taji

Spc. Raymond S. Armijo, 22, died in Taji, Iraq, on Oct. 2, of injuries sustained when an improvised explosive device detonated near his vehicle, according to the Department of Defense. (AP Photo/Armijo photo)

N.C. Based Marine From Indiana Dies In Iraq

November 3, 2006 The Associated Press

OWENSVILLE, Ind.:  A North Carolina-based Marine from Indiana who had been in Iraq about four months was shot and killed Thursday in Iraq's volatile Al Anbar region, a Marine official said.

Lance Cpl. James Brown, 20, was killed from a single gunshot wound to the neck while patrolling in Iraq's Al Anbar province west of Baghdad, said Marine Staff Sgt. Tim Kosky, who traveled from Terre Haute to Owensville to be with Brown's family.

Mary Hess, Brown's aunt, said the family learned of his death about 2:30 p.m. Thursday.

Brown, a 2005 Gibson Southern High School graduate, was deployed from Camp Lejeune, N.C., with the Third Battalion, Second Marines, Kosky said.

Family and friends gathered Thursday at the home of Brown's mother, Joanne Van Antwerp, in Owensville about 20 miles north of Evansville to console each other.

"He was just an awesome kid," family friend Tammy Dewig told the Princeton Daily Clarion.

She said Brown was engaged and was scheduled to come home from Iraq for his wedding in a few months.

Her husband, Kenny Dewig, said the couple's son, Darin, and Brown were lifelong friends.  He said spoke to Brown on the telephone on Tuesday, and Brown told him his squad had been patrolling in Iraq but that he could not disclose the area.

"He was right in the middle of it," Dewig said.

Brown, who enlisted in the Marines after graduating from high school, was deployed to Iraq in June and had been there for four months, he said.

Kenny Dewig said Brown, a Golden Gloves boxer who loved to hunt and fish, had been a leader in the Marines just as he had been a leader with the Titans football team.

"He was in charge of a whole squad on the patrols.  He was just a really good boy," Kenny Dewig said.

He said he and his wife regularly send care packages to their son Darin, who is in the U.S. Army, and would often send packages to Brown.  He said his wife, Tammy, was getting a care package ready to send to Brown when news of his death arrived.

"He was like a son to us," Kenny Dewig said.

Absarokee Man Dies In Iraq Bombing

October 27, 2006 By LANCE BENZEL, The Billings Gazette

Charles "Chuck" Komppa was nearing the end of his term as a reservist in the U.S. Navy when his Billings-based unit received word that it would be sent to Iraq - a month after he was to return to civilian life.

He chose to re-enlist, telling family and friends he felt called to serve.

"His heart was to go - there wasn't a question in him," said Allen Solheim, the pastor at Absarokee Evangelical Church, where Komppa, of Absarokee, served as a volunteer and devoted member with his wife, Delisa, and their two children, 14-year-old Alicia and 11-year-old Gary.

On Wednesday, Komppa, 35, was killed in combat.

The petty officer 2nd class was riding in a convoy in the Al Anbar province of Iraq when his vehicle was hit by an improvised explosive device, said Lt. Cdr. Jonathan Hughes, who oversees the naval training center where Komppa drilled with his unit.  Komppa was a combat electrician in the 3rd Naval Construction Regiment and assigned to the Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 18, Detachment 0618.

He is the 13th Montanan to be killed in the Iraq war.

Komppa, an electrician at the Stillwater Mine in Stillwater County, was no stranger to military service.  After graduating in 1990 from Ingram High School outside of San Antonio, the Texas native signed on for a five-year active-duty enlistment in the U.S. Navy.

That included a deployment to Operation Desert Storm, in which Komppa served as a boiler operator aboard a naval vessel in the Persian Gulf, Delisa Komppa said Thursday.

After his discharge, in 1995, Komppa set out to accomplish two longstanding goals: to become licensed as an electrician and to move his family to Montana.

"He loved the mountains and wanted to be here," Delisa Komppa said.

The family settled on Belgrade.  Komppa worked as a boiler operator at Montana State University in Bozeman and then as an electrician at Leister Electric in Livingston.

In 2003, Komppa accepted a job with the Stillwater Mining Co., where he maintained electrical equipment at the Stillwater Mine's ground-level mill site.  That's also the year he re-enlisted as a reservist in the Navy, a move he had been discussing with his wife since shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Delisa Komppa said her husband "felt it was something he needed to do."

"I felt otherwise," she said. "(But) you see how it changed our world. I just started to see it the way he did.  If everybody felt the way I did, who would be willing to go?"

Komppa re-enlisted for a six-year term in June, knowing his unit would be deployed July 17.  He had discussed his decision with family and friends, including Solheim, whose son is in his third deployment to Iraq with the U.S. Army.

"He talked to me about the possibility of (dying), and that never changed his mind," Solheim said. "He had a real sense of duty and a real call to serve."

Despite living in Absarokee for only three years, Komppa was known as a caring community member.  He donated many hours of electrical work at his congregation's new church, lent his talents to friends and neighbors and once wired a house for a church member without charging a dime.

Komppa enjoyed fly-fishing and spending time outdoors with his children, and he spoke warmly of his daughter's first hunting trip last year, during which she took her first deer, family members said.

"He was like a rock, and he was the rock of our family," said Delisa Komppa.

Since the family received word of Komppa's death Wednesday, friends and neighbors in Absarokee have flocked to the family's home, bringing meals, running errands and offering comfort, Delisa Komppa said. It's been an "overwhelming response," but it would not have surprised her husband, she said.

"Before he left, he said, 'If anything does happen to me, I know our church and our community will come to our aid,' " she said.  "He was confident of that, and he was right."

The family is planning a funeral to be held at Absarokee Evangelical Church.

Indiana Soldier Killed In Mosul

11.3.06:  Army Sgt. Kriag Foyteck was killed in Mosul when he was hit in the neck by a bullet or mortar, his family said.  The family was notified on Tuesday, Oct. 31, 2006.  Foyteck grew up in Skokie, Ill., and attended Niles West High School, but his family moved to LaPorte, Ind., about 25 miles west of South Bend, while he was in Iraq. (AP Photo/Foyteck family)

Another South African Mercenary Killed

November 3, 2006 BuaNews (Tshwane)

Yet another South African has died in Iraq, bringing to 17 the number of South Africans killed in that country since the start of a war there.

Mr Morné Pieters was killed in Basra on Monday, confirmed the South African diplomatic mission in Kuwait on Thursday.

The Department of Foreign Affairs said the diplomatic mission was liaising with the deceased's employers to assist with returning his remains back home.

A further eight South Africans have been reported missing in that country and are thus presumed dead.

‘Firecracker’

November 3, 2006 By Julian E. Barnes, L.A. Times Staff Writer

Ramadi, Iraq

ON July 4, a squad of Marines was ordered to an intersection nicknamed "Firecracker," the most dangerous in this city.  The group's mission was to set up a position to watch for people placing bombs and to fight insurgents.

For much of the squad, from the 3rd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment, this was their second combat tour in Iraq.

But the fight at Firecracker was the fiercest they had seen.

The Marines recently returned from Iraq.

This is their story, told in their own words.

The account begins with the squad leader, Cpl. Caesar Hernandez, 22, of Delray Beach, Fla., and continues with Cpl. Justin Kaminski, 21, of Baltimore; medical corpsman Frank Sanchez, 20, of Los Angeles; and Lance Cpl. Greg Crans, 20, of Bath, N.Y.

The battle started at night, before Hernandez's squad reached the intersection.

Hernandez:  Right outside of friendly lines, it must have been about 10 or 15 minutes into my patrol, an explosion went off.  I was at the front of the patrol, and it hit the rear of the patrol.

Immediately the training kicks in.  I pulled my lead element of the patrol back and had them set up a 360-degree defense.  I started asking on the (patrol radio) if everyone was all right.  My second-team leader, Cpl. Kaminski, he wouldn't roger up.  So I immediately thought: "They got hit in the rear."

Kaminski: I am the last guy in the formation.  One of my jobs is to make sure no one is behind us, no one is following us.  So I was looking behind us. I turned back around, and Sanchez is about to turn a corner.  So I was jogging a couple steps, trying to close the gap. That is when it went off.  I saw the flash, the fire and the flame, just where he was standing. I remember little stuff hitting me and then being pushed back.

I was unconscious, then I woke up on the ground.  There was still smoke in the sky, stuff was falling out of the sky.  I stood up and remembered the flash of light right on top of him. I ran to where the smoke was, right where it hit. But he wasn't there. I started yelling his name and running forward.

Sanchez: The rest of the squad was around the corner.  It was just me and Kaminski. I turned back to make sure he was still there. I took a step, and I saw a big flash of light in front of my face, and I felt heat coming up.  And I heard the boom. The next thing I know, I was laying facedown on the pavement.  I didn't know what was going on, all the dust was everywhere. I just assumed I was dead.

Then I heard Kaminski yelling my name.  I couldn't hear out of my right ear, so I didn't know where it was coming from. I started looking around. I couldn't find my weapon. I was crawling around looking for my rifle.  I found my rifle and tried to get up. From the waist down, the blast numbed me up.  I couldn't feel my legs.

Kaminski: Cpl. Hernandez and Lance Cpl. Crans came running around the corner, and they were asking if anyone was hit.

I yelled, "Doc was hit." That is the first thing (Sanchez) says he remembers, me yelling, "Doc was hit."  He mumbled, "I'm all right."

I helped him up, and we helped him get his weapon, which was probably 2 feet in front of him. We pushed around the corner where everyone else had pushed around, and he fell immediately. I was checking him out.

There was a puddle on the ground. I looked at it and thought it was blood.

Sanchez: My legs gave out.  I was trying to put a tourniquet on my leg, trying to stop the bleeding. I was freaking out. But it was water. Luckily, I had the day pack full of water. That stopped most of the shrapnel from hitting my back.  When I got to Charlie surgical, I emptied my pack. The bottom water bottles were torn up. There was shrapnel. But the water bottles stopped it.

I had shrapnel all over me. (The bomb) was pretty big.  The blast tossed me 10 feet. That kept most of the shrapnel away from me. If shrapnel would have hit me, I would have been dead.

THE squad went back to base, sent Kaminski and Sanchez to the surgical station, then set out again for Firecracker. The troops arrived shortly before midnight at the house they would occupy.  Some of the homes around Firecracker were abandoned, but many, including this one, still had families living in them.  The squad ushered the Iraqi residents into a back room, where they would be protected from an attack. Meantime, the Marines took up fighting positions on the roof and in some of the second-floor rooms.

The next day, fighting broke out in the early afternoon when a rocket-propelled grenade slammed into the side of the house.  The RPG, designed to pierce the armor of tanks, has become one of the main weapons insurgents fire at American positions.

Cpl. Joseph J. Zigler, 23, of Stow, Ohio, and Lance Cpl. Daniel Turczan, 28, of Flushing, N.Y., were on the second floor of the house, peering out two windows, shielded by camouflage netting and a small piece of ballistic glass.

Zigler: It was 15, 20 minutes after I took post, the first RPG slammed into the building. When it hit the wall, it was just to the left of the window one of my Marines (Turczan) was in.  That broke the window and sent a lot of glass and debris into the room. It is so loud you cannot decipher if it is one gun or 12.  My ears felt like they were going to blow up.

Turczan: It was pretty loud.  The first RPG messed up my hearing. After that, everything was muted; it was kind of dulled. I got into the prone [position] and then we got hit by a [machine gun] for about 30 seconds or so.  It was spraying into the room.

I looked up once. To the side. I saw my team leader, Cpl. Zigler.  He was taking cover too. You can't really see rounds flying. But what I did see was holes start to appear in the wall, in the masonry and stuff. It must have been 400 rounds coming in. But it has the same emotional impact as waiting for a stop sign.

The thing that goes through my head is: "I am not hit, and I am in the best position to be in." It wasn't always like that, but after a couple months here, you get desensitized to getting shot at. You basically do your job.

We got fired on by another RPG. I knew kind of where the fire was coming from. I saw how the glass was broken. I saw impact where most of the bullets hit. I was able to make a line back to the building across the street, 250 meters away. That building had a lot of bricks in the window so I figured that is where they were shooting from. At that point, I started shooting back.

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

THE Marines in another second-floor room, Lance Cpl. Gabriel Soto, 20, of Coral Springs, Fla., and Lance Cpl. Nicholas Kobus, 21, of Dalton, Mass., also began returning fire.

Soto: Once the fire stopped, I got up and started looking out the windows to see what I could see. I couldn't see too much, but we got engaged again. An RPG hit, and then we started taking rounds.

Cpl. Kobus was right there. He comes and engages with a Milkor 32 [grenade launcher]. When he was out of rounds, I started engaging with my M-16.  We couldn't see anything. It was too crazy.

I am glad I didn't completely freeze up and just kind of hide in a corner. That is what you are told, everyone is different. You can be the hardest guy, and you might cower in the corner. And the guy who you think would just hide might be the only guy getting shots off. I didn't think I was the harder guy.  I was more like, "Really, I hope I don't freeze up." Before this I was always hoping: If I get shot at, I hope I don't piss myself. I hope I friggin' send some rounds back.

AS the fighting continued, Hernandez ordered a team to go with him to the roof to try to get a better view of the insurgents firing at them. Among them were Cpl. Cory Schneider, 19, of Dayton, Ohio, and Lance Cpl. Michael Wilson, 19, of Foley, Ala.

Schneider: As I was running up the stairs, an RPG hit the wall right where I was running up. It was pretty scary, to tell you the truth. I wasn't expecting it. I was expecting to make it to the roof without interruption. The whole building shook. It knocked me down.

Wilson: We ran to the roof with our gear, our weapons and ammunition. We were trying to figure out where we were being fired at from.

I remember another blast going off just before we got to the roof. We think it was an [improvised explosive device] because it was in the road. It threw a lot of stuff, asphalt, straight up, and it landed on the roof we were on. Shortly after that, we started taking more small-arms fire.

You are focused on one thing. You hear better, you see better, everything is better. I guess it is the adrenaline. I really don't know.

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

FROM behind the protection of a wall that surrounded the roof, Hernandez and his squad members could scan the entire area around Firecracker. When the attackers fired another RPG, two Marines spotted the triggerman. Four hours had passed since the initial attack, and the Marines were starting to tire. The squad had a rocket called a lightweight antitank weapon, or LAW.  The LAW rocket is the Marines' equivalent of an RPG and can be used to attack fortified positions.

Schneider: I saw the actual back-blast where the [RPG] came from…. That is where he was firing from. There is a lot of yelling when you are in contact. If you are not yelling, you are not going to be able to hear each other.

As you get exhausted, it is your training that kicks in and keeps you going even if your mind is not there. Not that I am saying my mind wasn't there. But it was muscle memory. You keep doing what you are supposed to be doing.

Kobus: The building they were shooting at us from wasn't as high as ours so we had a little bit of protection. We had a little bit better angle on them.  As soon as they took their RPG shot, I popped up and saw the guy holding the launcher in his hand. He started running for the door.

Hernandez: Lance Cpl. Kobus had a visual and said that he was going to take the LAW rocket shot. It is kind of like a bazooka. I told the guys on post to lay down suppressive fire so he can take the shot. We gave him covering fire and he went out there.

Kobus: All I was worried about was taking the shot. If I can make the shot, I thought, we would stop taking fire, we would get the guys who were shooting at us. I shot it pretty much right as he ran into the door.

It went into the window. It blew up. The only thing we saw was a little flash and a lot of smoke coming out.

Soto: The LAW rocket explosion wasn't as big as I thought it would be. I saw it go straight in, though. At that point they completely slowed down their fight. I don't think we got engaged after that.

When you are being engaged that much, your adrenaline is pumping so much you want the battle to keep going. It was good because you are like, "I do not have to worry about being shot at anymore," but the same time it is "damn, I want to shoot a little bit more."

Crans: We broke down the enemy's will to fight for the rest of the day. The enemy didn't know how much force they were dealing with.

Turczan: Basically it quieted down.  They stopped shooting at us, and we didn't have anything to shoot at.

People started coming back on the street — residents of the neighborhood. After the shooting stopped, a couple minutes later, people started getting on with their lives. I imagine they are used to it.  It must be something that happens a lot to them. This has been going on in the country for a while now.

Wilson: If you could have seen the room Turczan and Cpl. Zigler were in, you would be amazed that they were in one piece. There were bullet holes in the windows. Bullet holes inside the room on the walls.  You just thank God they were OK.

I didn't know what to expect in Iraq. I knew it wouldn't be easy. I knew I might die. This is my first tour. I would say definitely this fight was the most intense. When other people bring it up, I keep thinking to myself, "How did I get so lucky?"

Kobus: Just thinking back on it, it was the most exciting day of my life. Nothing I have ever done compares to it. It is a memory I will keep for a while.

Zigler: I will save all the war stories for when I get home. I do not want to worry anyone too much. They know what goes on. My fiancee knows when something happens. My mom is the same way.

They can always tell in my voice. But we kind of leave it at that. You think about it a little. You do think about it, but you can't think about it too much. You have a job to do.

THE battalion returned home last month after handing central Ramadi off to another group of Marines.  All of the Marines in this article made it back safely.  In all, 17 battalion members out of about 900 were killed during their seven months in Iraq.

Sanchez and Kaminski both recovered from their injuries and returned to duty. 

For his leadership during the July 4 fight, Hernandez was awarded the Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal. Kobus was promoted to corporal and now has his own squad. Crans was also promoted and will soon lead a squad.

The battalion is due to return to the Middle East next year.  The men are scheduled to serve as a reserve force ready to be called into Iraq if reinforcements are needed.

FUTILE EXERCISE:

BRING THEM ALL HOME NOW!

US soldiers search cars at a snap checkpoint set up in Baghdad's Karada district.  (AFP/Ahmad Al-Rubaye)

TROOP NEWS

THIS IS HOW BUSH BRINGS THE TROOPS HOME:

BRING THEM ALL HOME NOW

A U.S. military worker holds the hand of a wounded U.S. soldier inside a U.S. military hospital at the fortified Green Zone in Baghdad October 30, 2006.  REUTERS/Thaier al-Sudani (IRAQ)

A group of soldiers from the Minnesota National Guard stationed in Iraq, hold up a sign mocking recent comments by Sen. John Kerry about people who didn't study in school being 'stuck in Iraq.'  (AP Photo/WTMJ-AM)

Halp Is On The Way:

Washington Senate Candidate For Immediate Withdrawal From Iraq

November 3, 2006 By Jesse Hagopian, Socialist Worker [Excerpts]

AARON DIXON is the Green Party’s candidate for the U.S. Senate in Washington state. He is a former leading member of the Black Panther Party and a lifelong activist for social justice.  Here, Aaron speaks with campaign manager JESSE HAGOPIAN about why he’s running and what he hopes to accomplish.

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

WHY ARE you running against the Democratic incumbent Maria Cantwell, and as a Green?

MY RUNNING against Maria Cantwell is an opportunity to draw attention to the war in Iraq, NAFTA, CAFTA and the rest of the right-wing agenda pushed by the Bush administration that Maria Cantwell has supported.

She has gone back on many of the things she promised to deliver to voters. My running was an opportunity to bring a lot of those issues to the forefront.

Just as important, I wanted to help people understand that there is really very little difference between Republicans and Democrats.

If you look at history, the Democratic Party started most major wars that we have been in. So we will never escape war and poverty with this same two-party system. We need a multi-party system--that’s why I am running as a Green.

MARIA CANTWELL says that she wants to make 2006 a year of transition, where the U.S. begins to redeploy troops and hand over security to the Iraqis.  What do you think of her position?

BUSH HAS said that he doesn’t want to keep the troops in Iraq forever as well, but that isn’t an antiwar position.  Everything Maria says, Bush has already said it.  She says that the U.S. can leave when Iraqi forces can maintain security, but the truth is they will never be able to maintain security as long as the target of U.S. troops remains in Iraq.  There is already a civil war in Iraq--a U.S. general recently admitted that.

What is really amazing about Cantwell’s position is that for months during the campaign, she said she had “no regrets” about voting to authorize the war on Iraq.  It wasn’t until a couple of months ago, when her Republican challenger, Mike McGavick, came out to her left and stated that he wouldn’t have authorized the war in Iraq, that Cantwell changed her position.

She has now gone back on her original decision to authorize the war, but just two weeks ago, she voted for another $70 billion to be spent on the war.  So we can see her position is still for the war.

HOW DID you develop your political understanding of the world?

A LOT of it had to do with my family and the upbringing my parents gave me. I grew up with my great-great-grandmother in the house. She had been a slave. I grew up on stories of slavery at home, and you could be sure that I wasn’t going to ever let us go back to those days.

WASN’T YOUR father a radical?

YES, HE was. But it was a process.  He became a radical through his experiences in the military.

He had joined his high school ROTC, and he went off to fight in the Second World War.

At one point, his company was stationed at a military base in Mississippi. There came a time when he and the other Black soldiers were supposed to be able to go on furlough, but the commanding officer ordered the Black soldiers to stay on the base and clean the white soldier’s latrines.

My father wasn’t going to take this, and he led a rebellion of the troops to demand justice.

Another time, my father and the Black soldiers were marching around the bivouac in Mississippi, some 10 or 15 miles, and they came upon a farm and asked the white farmer if they could cross the field.  He told them that, “No niggers are allowed near my property,” and he chased them off with his shotgun.

My father was supposedly fighting for democracy against Hitler’s fascism, and he and his Black platoon were called niggers right at home.  Black soldiers in Mississippi at that time had to literally fight for their lives in their own country.  My father wasn’t going to stand for it, and he and the soldiers went back to that farmer’s barn with torches that night.

After my father got out of the military, he joined the Communist Party and Paul Robeson’s Youth Brigade.  These were the stories I grew up on, and they gave me an understanding of some of the fundamental problems with this country.

Besides my upbringing, you have to look at the conditions that existed when I was growing up: being exposed to the civil rights movement and the assassination of political leaders. This all played a part in shaping my political consciousness.

YOU FOUNDED the Seattle chapter of the Black Panther Party. What made you decide to be a Panther?

MY BROTHER and the younger people we ran with were looking for a way to organize against racism and the other issues we felt needed to be addressed.

At first, we thought a Black Student Union (BSU) would satisfy that, and it didn’t. We did have some successes. We were able to pressure the University of Washington to implement a Black Studies Department, but many people in that organization were more into academics and not as much into action.

So then we started a Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee chapter. But that didn’t end up satisfying us either. Remember, Martin Luther King was assassinated in 1968, and we felt it was a time when we had to do more.

So soon after that, we had an opportunity to go down to Oakland for a BSU conference. But I cut out of the conference and went to go see the Black Panther Party give a memorial service for Little Bobby Hutton, who had just been murdered by the police.

I saw Bobby Seale deliver the most dynamic speech I have ever heard. He had just come from the funeral where he had to bury his comrade.  He was very emotional about what happened, and that was the first time I heard anyone speak so directly.  This was first time I experienced the brashness of the Black Panthers--and I liked it.

We recognized immediately that this was what we wanted to be a part of. We understood that was what this country needed: an organization like the BPP that was putting theory into practice: that was out in the community doing some very important work.

THE ELECTION is just days away as we speak. What would you say you’ve accomplished with this campaign?

WHETHER WE win or lose on November 7, this campaign has accomplished a lot.

We have given voice to people all over the state who are fed up with the current two-party system that maintains illegal wars, which are sucking out our resources that should be used to strengthen our communities. 

We brought that message to over a dozen towns across Washington in our “Out of war and into our communities” tour.

We got thousands of people talking about where our money would be better spent. Here in Seattle, for example, they are proposing to close 10 schools in neighborhoods that are predominantly people of color--and the parents have had to file a lawsuit.

Whether we win or lose the election, we have raised issues that would not even have entered the mainstream debate: immediate withdrawal of troops from Iraq, a national health care program for all Americans, a living wage, rebuilding New Orleans.

We exposed the contradictions in the electoral process that claims to be democratic, but is really corrupted by obscene wealth. This point was made for thousands of people last week when they arrested me for trying to participate in the televised Senate debate.  It’s hard to even call it a debate when they expressly stated that only millionaires could participate.

Most importantly, we’ve brought together poor and working-class whites with Latinos, African Americans and Asians to oppose this war and the cost it is having on our communities domestically. 

This campaign is just the beginning of a new fight for justice.

FORWARD OBSERVATIONS

“The Rebellion Of Thousands Of American Soldiers Against The War”

Review by Jackhammer, Flick Mojo

Sir! No Sir!:  A documentary about soldiers who fought to end the Vietnam war

The Vietnam War has been the subject of hundreds of films, both fiction and non-fiction, but this story, the story of the rebellion of thousands of American soldiers against the war, has never been told in film.

Sir! No Sir! will change all that.

The film tells the story of an anti-war movement didn’t take place on college campuses, but in barracks and on aircraft carriers.

It flourished in army stockades, navy brigs and in the dingy towns that surround military bases.

It penetrated elite military colleges like West Point.

And it spread throughout the battlefields of Vietnam.

It was a movement no one expected, least of all those in it.

Hundreds went to prison and thousands into exile.

And by 1971 it had, in the words of one colonel, infested the entire armed services.

Yet today few people know about the GI movement against the war in Vietnam.

Sir! No Sir!:

At A Theatre Near You!

To find it: http://www.sirnosir.com/

“STAY THE COURSE”

Mike Hastie, Vietnam Veteran, October 26, 2006

2204 South 11th Street

From: Dennis Serdel

To: GI Special

Sent: November 03, 2006

Subject: 2204 South 11th Street by Dennis

By Dennis Serdel, Vietnam 1967-68 (one tour), Americal Div. 11th Brigade, Light Infantry, purple heart; Veterans For Peace #50, Vietnam Veterans Against The War, UAW General Motors Retiree, Perry, Michigan

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

             2204 South 11th Street

It was a little white house

later embarrassing Carl and his sisters

as they grew up and compared it

with other kid's houses.

But in Vietnam it was home

so far away and America seemed so small

but the little white house

at 2204 South 11th Street seemed so big.

Back from the jungle and the boonies

when Carl and the brothers

were back at Base Camp

they would clean up and get stoned.

He would write letters to his mother

and father and sisters never telling them

though how many of the others

were killed or wounded bad.

Carl and his brothers didn't want them

to worry by telling them the truth

how bad it was so Carl would write

letters filled with love and not the war

to 2204 South 11th Street.

They went through 7 Captains

and 17 Ltn's and the original company

was whittled down to 12 including Carl.

But they did not need to know this

during his tour, all they needed to know

was Hi Mom, Hi Dad and Hi Sis.

We’re back at the Base Camp

for awhile eating food the right way

not out of cans and everything is OK.

There is nothing to worry about

and he would address it

to 2204 South 11th Street.

His home was like heaven

that he was sure he would never see again

but he did and he did not know how.

The only problem now was that Carl still held

the war inside of himself again.

OCCUPATION PALESTINE/LEBANON

Zionists Butcher Un-Armed Women

[Thanks to Pham Binh, Traveling Soldier, and J, who sent this in.]

November 3, 2006 Guardian Unlimited & Aljazeera

Two Palestinian women were killed and another 10 were reported wounded when Israeli forces today opened fire on a group preparing to act as a human shield for about 60 Palestinian fighters besieged inside a Gaza mosque.

Israeli troops open fire on women outside mosque: Salem/Reuters

The events came on the third day of an Israeli assault on the Gaza town of Beit Hanoun, the largest operation Israel has conducted in the Gaza Strip in months.

On Friday, about 200 Palestinian women marched towards the al-Nasir mosque in Beit Hanoun, which Israeli forces surrounded on Thursday, in an attempt to rescue fighters who had taken shelter in the mosque during the Israeli incursion.

Dozens of women were gathering outside the mosque in Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip this morning after an appeal on a local radio station. 

Television pictures showed at least 50 women making their way along a pavement when shots could be heard ringing out.  They started to flee in terror and at least two women were left lying on the ground.

Witnesses said two women, both aged about 40, were killed, and 10 others were wounded.

Elham Hamad, a Palestinian woman who attended the protests, told Aljazeera: "We were confronted by a tank, and we raised a white flag (but) without any warning they started shooting at us.

"A number of women, including me, fell injured.  We remained for a long time without any aid or ambulances."

At least 25 Palestinians have been killed since Israeli troops entered Beit Hanoun on Wednesday in a bid to halt rocket attacks on southern Israel.  One Israeli soldier has also died.

In the resulting confusion all the militants managed to escape, some reportedly wearing robes supplied by the women.

A 22-year-old Palestinian man was also killed in the northern town, which troops seized on Wednesday.

Israeli tanks and armoured personnel carriers surrounded the mosque when militants took refuge there.  Overnight, the two sides exchanged fire.  

Witnesses said an Israeli army bulldozer knocked down an outer wall of the mosque, causing the ceiling to collapse.

The Palestinian prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh, of Hamas "saluted the women of Palestine ... who led the protest to break the siege of Beit Hanoun".  He urged the UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, to witness first-hand "the massacres of the Palestinian people", and appealed to the Arab world to "stop the ongoing bloodshed".

A spokesman for Hamas militants said 32 gunmen who had taken cover in the mosque escaped with the help of the women. 

Loudspeakers across Gaza called on people to come to demonstrations after Friday prayers to express solidarity with Beit Hanoun.  By late morning, two rallies were already in progress in Beit Hanoun, and militants in the crowds were firing at soldiers, the Israeli army said.

Meanwhile at least two more Israeli airstrikes on Friday evening killed at least two more Palestinians, Palestinian security officials said.

The first reportedly hit a mosque near Beit Hanoun, injuring three more people, witnesses told AFP. The second, in the town of Beit Lahiya, killed a member of the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades and wounded another, medical sources said.

More than 280 Palestinians have been killed in the four-month-old offensive in the coastal territory, about half of them civilians.  Three Israeli soldiers have also died.

[To check out what life is like under a murderous military occupation by foreign terrorists, go to: www.rafahtoday.org  The occupied nation is Palestine.  The foreign terrorists call themselves “Israeli.”]

DANGER: POLITICIANS AT WORK

They Really Do Hate Our Freedoms:

If The Government Labels You A “Terrorist,” Anybody Who Gives You A Cup Of Coffee Can Be Arrested

November 3, 2006 By Nicole Colson [Socialist Worker]

FEDERAL PROSECUTORS are attempting to smear Mohammed Salah as a Palestinian “terrorist,” while ignoring Israeli atrocities committed against Salah himself, among so many others.

Salah is a Palestinian activist who was arrested in 2003 for supposedly providing “material support” to the militant Palestinian group Hamas, which the U.S. government considers a terrorist organization.

Salah and his lawyer Michael Deutsch say that he is guilty of nothing more than donating humanitarian aid to Palestinian refugees, but prosecutors say the money was used to fund attacks on Israel and claim the case against him is part of the “war on terror.”

To that end, prosecutors are putting not just Salah on trial, but Hamas itself. The prosecution has introduced posters showing Hamas suicide bombers superimposed next to Hamas politicians.

Last week, U.S. Treasury Department official Matthew Levitt outlined more than three dozen acts of terrorism supposedly committed by Hamas against Israel between 1992 and 2004. 

The prosecution admits that Salah was in an Israeli jail for much of that time, but their case hinges on “guilt by association.”  Levitt testified that Hamas suicide bombings were an attempt to “undermine Israeli sense of security. It sends a message that Israelis aren’t safe anywhere in the country.”

But as Deutsch pointed out on cross-examination, Levitt’s emphasis on Israeli casualties obscures the reality of daily life for Palestinians. Deutsch pointed out that, according to one study, approximately 1,400 Israeli soldiers and civilians have been killed since 1987, compared to more than 5,500 Palestinians killed.  “Are you not interested in the fact that Palestinians, unarmed Palestinian people, are killed at a rate of five times the number of Israelis killed?” Deutsch asked Levitt.

Prosecutors claim that Salah admitted to delivering money and recruits to Hamas.  But that supposed “admission” was obtained in Israel, where Salah spent four-and-a-half years in jail in the mid-1990s, following what he says was torture, including days of hooding, sleep deprivation and death threats by his Israeli captors.

Upcoming testimony in the trial is expected to include two of Salah’s Israeli captors, who will be allowed to testify anonymously.

While the Bush administration ratcheted up the witch-hunt against Salah, it was the Clinton administration that invoked special terrorism laws in 1995 to label Salah, a U.S. citizen, a “specially designated terrorist.”

According to law professor David Cole, when Salah was placed on this list, it became a crime for anyone in the U.S. to have any economic transactions with him.

“As a result,” Cole wrote in Britain’s Guardian newspaper, “Salah was subjected to a kind of internal banishment, in which it was a crime for anyone else in the United States to provide him with anything of value.

“The law prohibited Salah's neighbor from offering him a cup of coffee, the local news agent from selling him a newspaper, or a doctor from treating him in the hospital.

“The Treasury Department told him he could get a job only if he first informed his prospective employer that he was a ‘specially designated terrorist’ and the employer then obtained a special license to pay Salah.”

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

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