CAPITALISM: I used to think the Republican side was clearly better...

rearden,

i thought for sure you were a life long libertarian.


best,

surfer

 

Ironically, what was spent in the whole Clinton investigation (read: witchhunt) is what "we" blow in an hour in Iraq. That figure will double per hour as the reconstruction begins. Hell, it may even triple since the Iraqis mysteriously don't seem to like freedom very much.

Don't take this the wrong way AAA, but you are too smart for your party.


Most people didn't think, in a million years, that GWB would be elected. Shit happens. The world will recover. The deficit will get repaid once a real man is elected President, and the spoiled brat is replaced.

 

Subject: news from the Front


I THOUGHT YOU ALL MIGHT LIKE TO READ WHAT ONE OF OUR SERVICE MEN HAD TO SAY ABOUT IRAQ. NO POLITICS INVOLVED
This was sent to me by an old friend. He was in the military in the 70's.
His VA post received this letter a few weeks ago. I thought it gave a
refreshing look at what's going on in Iraq.


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



Letter to the Legion

Dear Post 45:

I caught wind of and read the recent news articles being circulated back
there in the states. I figured I could clarify some things for you.

As usual the news media has blown some things way out of proportion. The
countryside is getting more safe by the day despite all the attacks you are
hearing about. Imagine every shooting incident or robbery committed in LA or
Portland being blown way out of proportion. This is a country where most of
the Saddam Hussein thugs are being chased around like scared rabbits by
Coalition forces. It is literally open season on them! We hunt them down
like animals. There were about a million soldiers in the Iraqi army at the
beginning of hostilities and most of them took off before we attacked. There
are some that were very loyal to Saddam that are trying to sneak around and
take pot shots at us. We are cleaning them up pretty fast.

There are also thugs from other countries running around, like Iran and
Syria. Well, the Iraqis hate these thugs as much as we do. So the Iraqi
people are hunting them down too! I can honestly say 98% of the population
of Iraq love us and they do not want us to leave... ever! They say as long
as we are here they feel safe.

What is going on with the countries infrastructure? Everything is going
well! The railroad is running again! The railroad has not run since 1991. In
the city of Hilllah, the power stays on 24 hours a day and it has more power
than prior to the war. Some Iraqis are worried about getting too much food
from the coalition because they don't have enough room in their homes to
store it. The markets are open. The Seabees have rebuilt all of the schools
and put in furniture and chalkboards. The kids used to sit on the floor! Now
they have nice desks to sit at. Commerce is running. New money is being
printed. The Iraqi Dinar has stabilized and is now increasing in value. Most
of the Iraqi men want to buy Chevy pickups (I told them a Dodge Ram with a
Cummins Diesel is better Ha Ha). They pretty much want any vehicle made by
General Motors. The highways and bridges are being repaired. In the
Universities, the girls have tossed their deshakas (long black dresses with
head and face coverings) and are now wearing western style clothes and even
some are wearing short sleeves. The favorite drink is Pepsi, followed by
Coke. They want us to bring them any and everything American. Any item made
in America or that is from America is worth money over here.

The newspapers and television paint a picture of doom and gloom and that we
are having major problems over here. That is just not the case. The Iraqis
have a saying about the situation over here "Every day is better than the
day before". Life is flowing back in to this country and it is fun to watch
and I am so glad I got to watch it happen. Some days watching the Iraqi
people is like watching the faces of little kids on Christmas Day! Many of
them are walking around in a daze wondering what to do with their freedom.
They are starting businesses everywhere. They want to build shopping malls
and factories, they want McDonalds and Jack in the Box and Pizza Hut. Of
course anything American Fast Food, because of the stories the troops are
telling them. We give them our old newspapers and magazines that you have
been sending us and they are absolutely flabbergasted when they read them!
They want us to keep bringing them. They read every single page even the
advertisements over and over! This would be a good time for media to get
their magazines going over here because the Iraqis just love them.

So in short you see I will give you the straight scoop and keep you informed
of what is up over here. I will sign off for now and send this along. Thanks
again to all of you for your support. My mailing address has changed. The
older one is no longer working. I will tell you the new one as soon as we
get it.

Senior Chief Art Messer
22 Naval Construction Regiment (Forward) Task Force Charlie U. S. Navy
Seabees

 

The Bushies have to be careful they don't start scaring moderate Republicans with this Christian reactionary police state image that is fast getting pasted on W. He's possibly vulnerable on truthfullness also. Assuming Cheney steps aside, the running mate will be important. I think I'm ready to have an open mind and be persuaded it should be Rice. Rummy and both Powells would go after a win I guess. On the economy, I used to think housing and homeownership was the secret weapon argument but now not so sure. This export of American jobs overseas is hitting all voters in a visceral way and is turning into a big hot political knife. I haven't got a clue how the sides should play it but do have a sense that any "new global economy" mumbo jumbo could get slammed down hard.

Bung - some nice street fighting arguments you raised above BTW.

Geo.

 

Keymar, right right

By Salim Muwakkil
In These Times
8.11.03

One soldier told ABC, “I’ve got my own ‘Most Wanted List,’ [and] the aces in my deck are Bremer, Rumsfeld, Bush, and Wolfowitz.”

Soldiers of the first U.S. invasion force to enter Iraq have expressed widespread resentment for Bush administration officials.

“If Donald Rumsfeld was here, I’d ask him for his resignation,” Spec. Clinton Dietz of the 3rd Infantry’s 2nd Brigade told ABC News in a July 15 report. Another sergeant said, “I’ve got my own ‘Most Wanted List,’ [and] the aces in my deck are Paul Bremer, Donald Rumsfeld, George Bush, and Paul Wolfowitz.” Those are the four men running U.S. policy in Iraq.

This is pretty serious stuff. GIs might gripe among themselves in the barracks, or the mess hall, but rarely are those complaints publicly expressed. Even in the aftermath of the Nuremberg trials, the universal soldier’s credo is: Ours is not to reason why, ours is but to do or die.

The abrupt cancellation of homecoming plans probably pushed the men of the 2nd Brigade over the line. After all, they have been in the region since last September, when they were deployed to Kuwait. They were among the first troops in Baghdad during the invasion and have been in the region longer than other troops. But the soldiers also knew that making disparaging comments about civilian leadership of the military could bring a serious reprimand or even court martial. Some apparently were willing to take that risk.

Their courage, or recklessness, brings back memories of the Vietnam era and the soldiers who became involved in the struggle against that war. Members of the U.S. armed forces were some of the earliest soldiers in the antiwar movement; groups of veterans and active duty members were prominent in many antiwar protests. In Vietnam, increasing numbers of fragging incidents (attacks on superior officers) and mutinies revealed the troops’ growing disenchantment with official policy. The general public didn’t turn solidly against the war until late in the game, and then only grudgingly. Even after the 1971 revelations in the infamous Pentagon Papers, most Americans supported the anti-Communist crusade in Southeast Asia.

Our current situation is a bit different. Many Americans joined in global concert with millions of others to protest the prospect of this war. Much ado now is being made about the 16-word “mistake” (or lie) Bush uttered during his State of the Union address, but most global observers knew it was a dubious claim when he made it. There was already considerable information available in the global media that had cast doubt on the Niger uranium story.

Those who crafted Bush’s speech, and probably the president himself, knew the information was deceptive. But so what? They had been planning an invasion of Iraq at least since 2001 and had gone way too far to quit now. In fact, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, one of the major architects of the Iraq invasion, had been planning to invade the country since at least 1992, when he drafted a policy paper for Dick Cheney, then the defense secretary in the first Bush administration.

That report, excerpts of which were published in the March 8, 1992 edition of the New York Times, urged the United States to protect and exploit its unique superpower status, making pre-emptive strikes and taking unilateral action whenever necessary to ensure our pre-eminence. The draft proposal declared, “Our first objective is to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival, either on the territory of the former Soviet Union or elsewhere.” The report called for military intervention in Iraq to assure “access to vital raw material, primarily Persian Gulf oil” and to prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and threats from terrorism.

At the time, Wolfowitz’s prescriptions were considered too bellicose. The first Bush administration drastically revised and softened the document. Wolfowitz bided his time and retreated to the woodshed with his neoconservative cohorts, where they honed their arguments and sharpened their strategy. He is part of a group of ideologues that has been busy formulating policy prescriptions since 1976, under the auspices of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA). Founded by neoconservatives concerned about Israel’s security, JINSA has attracted a select roster of board members including, at one time or another, Vice President Dick Cheney, former CIA Director James Woolsey, the infamous Richard “Prince of Darkness” Perle, Undersecretary of State for Arms Control John Bolton, Pentagon official Douglas Feith, and Michael Ledeen, the itinerate and influential “terrorist consultant.” Many of these same individuals also are deeply involved with the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), created in 1997 and headed by William Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard. In 1998, PNAC wrote a public letter to President Bill Clinton urging he attack Iraq. Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Wolfowitz were among the signatories.

The selection of Bush II in 2000 gave the neocons their second shot. Wolfowitz came back to Rumsfeld’s Pentagon, this time as a deputy secretary. Several other PNAC members are sprinkled in high places, and it’s clear their ideas are driving Bush’s international policies. Any serious observer of these developments can see that Americans have been conned, or perhaps neo-conned, into invading Iraq. And in any war, the most serious observers are the soldiers.

____________________________

Salim Muwakkil is a senior editor of In These Times, where he has worked since 1983, and a weekly op-ed columnist for the Chicago Tribune.

http://inthesetimes.com/comments.php?id=306_0_3_0_C

 

Family Shot Dead by Panicking US Troops
Firing blindly during a power cut, soldiers kill a father and three children in their car

by Justin Huggler in Baghdad

The abd al-Kerim family didn't have a chance. American soldiers opened fire on their car with no warning and at close quarters. They killed the father and three of the children, one of them only eight years old. Now only the mother, Anwaar, and a 13-year-old daughter are alive to tell how the bullets tore through the windscreen and how they screamed for the Americans to stop.

"We never did anything to the Americans and they just killed us," the heavily pregnant Ms abd al-Kerim said. "We were calling out to them 'Stop, stop, we are a family', but they kept on shooting."

Anwaar Kawaz, 36, weeps as her daughter Hadeel, 13, stands next to her at their home in Baghdad, Iraq on Sunday Aug. 10, 2003. On Aug. 8, Anwaar's husband and three of her children were killed by U.S. forces when soldiers opened fire on the family's car as they were trying to get back home before curfew. (AP Photo/Dario Lopez-Mills)

The story of how Adel abd al-Kerim and three of his children were killed emerged yesterday, exactly 100 days after President George Bush declared the war in Iraq was over. In Washington yesterday, Mr Bush declared in a radio address: "Life is returning to normal for the Iraqi people ... All Americans can be proud of what our military and provisional authorities have achieved in Iraq."

But in this city Iraqi civilians still die needlessly almost every day at the hands of nervous, trigger-happy American soldiers.

Doctors said the father and his two daughters would have survived if they had received treatment quicker. Instead, they were left to bleed to death because the Americans refused to allow anyone to take them to hospital.

It happened at 9.30 at night, an hour after sunset, but long before the start of the curfew at 11pm. The Americans had set up roadblocks in the Tunisia quarter of Baghdad, where the abd al-Kerims live. The family pulled up to the roadblock sensibly, slowly and carefully, so as not to alarm the Americans.

But then pandemonium broke out. American soldiers were shooting in every direction. They just turned on the abd al-Kerims' car and sprayed it with bullets. You can see the holes in the front passenger window and in the rear window. You can see the blood of the dead all over the gray, imitation velvet seat covers.

A terrible misunderstanding took place. The Americans thought they were under attack from Iraqi resistance forces, according to several Iraqi witnesses. These are the circumstances of most killings of Iraqi civilians: a US patrol comes under rocket-propelled grenade attack and the soldiers panic and fire randomly.

This time there was no attack. Another car, driven by an Iraqi youth, Sa'ad al-Azawi, drove too fast up to another checkpoint further up the street. Al-Azawi and his two passengers did not hear an order to stop, as their stereo was turned up too loud. The US soldiers, thinking they were under attack, panicked and opened fire.

In the darkness of one of Baghdad's frequent power cuts, other US soldiers on the street heard gunfire and thought they were under attack. They, too, reacted by opening fire, though they could not see what was going on. Soldiers manning look-out posts on a nearby building joined in, firing down the street in the dark.

It was then that the abd al-Kerims drew up to the checkpoint. The panicking US soldiers turned on their car and shot the family to pieces.

"It was anarchy," said Ali al-Issawi, who lives on the street and witnessed the whole thing. "The Americans were firing at each other

 

Vinny,

Who cares other than the you and the guy that wrote the story? Whooping up on US soldiers is a non-starter. Look what happened to that moron that put the camera to his shoulder and the fate of his unfortunate story when the silly press tried to make something of it. It just doesn't cut any water in politics which is what we are on here. Lot of folks gonna get killed there. No big revelation.

Geo.

 

Bung is right. Bush is presiding over something that more closely resembles the fascism of the 1930's.

We have a growing police state, a hollowing and increasingly cruel economy as well as a fascination with elusive enemies who we perpetuate through illegal, chronic, and bankrupting wars.

It is very sad.

 

TO Interview: Stan Goff with Jennifer Van Bergen
t r u t h o u t | Wednesday, 16 July 2003

Editor’s Note | Stan Goff is a former Sergeant with Special Forces and military instructor at West Point, among other posts. He is the author of “Hideous Dreams,” about his experience in the 1994 American incursion into Haiti. Goff’s upcoming book, "Full Spectrum Disorder," from Soft Skull Press, will be available in December.

[JVB] Thank you, Stan, for taking the time to do this interview. Your extensive military background, which we'll get into in a moment, certainly qualifies you to speak on military matters. I want to remark, though, that it seems unusual for former military, especially those who were in Special Forces, to come out as strongly as you have against military measures. From your book, I sense that you are as much a social commentator and analyst as you are a former military man. Without going into your background yet, can you give truthout readers a short reason for this? How did you come to speak out as you're doing and, briefly, what is your main message?

[SG] I've always been intellectually restless, as I think anyone is who is truly interested in what is going on around them. Not interested in appearances, but interested in understanding how things work and damn the consequences. The military actually exposed me to some of the most educational experiences around, not the least of which was travel and the occasional obligation to live among and at the level of poor people in peripheral countries. Measuring my own experience against a lot of reading and studying led me to the left in a pretty gradual but inevitable way. I don't hold my views because of some religious devotion to an idea, but because leftist analysis conforms most consistently with my own experience. That doesn't mean it conforms with my comfort level. But when we stay comfortable, we quit growing. So I try to stay a little uncomfortable intellectually, an important thing for an auto-didact.

And a friend of mine who died recently said that soldiers are natural political scientists, because politics can be a matter of life or death to them. If I have a main message, it's that I'm from inside the military system, and now I am from inside the political left, and I want to build a bridge between the left and the military. Not militarism, but the people in the military.

[JVB] Tell us about your background.

[SG] My parents' families were from Arkansas and Michigan, but I moved a great deal when I was a kid. My dad followed work. I was actually born in San Diego. My family lived outside St. Louis when I joined the Army at 18. Both my parents worked at McDonnell-Douglas as riveters on center fuselage assembly of the F-4 Phantom close air support aircraft.

[JVB] How did you start out your career in the military?

[SG] I just hung around doing spot work and learning how to get into trouble right after I graduated high school in 1969. After a few months, I started to see myself stuck in St. Charles, taking a job on the assembly line at McDonnell. I believed the whole official narrative about the world communist conspiracy and in its evil, so I enlisted in the Army in January 1970.

[JVB] What conflicts did you fight in?

[SG] My first duty assignment was Vietnam. It was the 80s before I worked in any more conflict areas. I didn't fight in them all. They included Guatemala, Grenada, El Salvador, Peru, Colombia, Somalia, and Haiti.

[JVB] I realize you’ve written about Haiti in your fascinating book, “Hideous Dreams,” but could you tell us anything briefly about any of the other conflicts?

[SG] Well, there was a common denominator that it took me a couple of decades to figure out. We were engaged in conflicts against poor people. I didn’t realize it at the time – Haiti was the watershed actually – but this is the military role in an imperial state. While the national chambers of commerce in these places, with their eager compradors, assisted US corporations to drain the value out of these countries, the military’s job, often through the surrogate militaries of the host nation as we called it, is to stand guard against all those masses of people in the host nation from whom the value was being drained in labor and resources. If you steal enough from people, they hit a point where they become rebellious, and to continue stealing, you have to use people with guns.

Aside from that sort of macro-analysis, one thing that stands out in my mind is how badly many of the operations went, and how important it is for the US military to spend huge sums of money on arms and high technology. Grenada and Somalia are examples. Real emblems of stupidity in planning and execution. That’s why I tell people not to buy into the hype about US military invincibility. Person for person, and dollar for dollar, the US military is the most inefficient in the world. And the most fragile. They are fragile because of their overwhelming dependence on high technology, and fragile because the troops come out of a pampered consumer culture where real physical hardship is anecdotal. Sustained hardship, as we are seeing in Iraq now, devastates morale.

[JVB] What kind of a commander were you? What did your colleagues think of you?

[SG] I was never a “commander.” That title is reserved for commissioned officers. I was a non-commissioned officer, a sergeant. I did, however, act as the senior enlisted member of infantry and special operations units. I had a very good reputation overall. I had an aptitude for planning and operations. And while I'm pretty small, I was pretty wiry and I had very good physical endurance. I was well-respected by my subordinates, my peers, and by officers.

[JVB] When did you get into the Special Forces?

[SG] Actually, Special Forces was a late interest for me in the military. I started out an infantryman. I gravitated into the Rangers, which is a highly disciplined force of specially trained shock infantry that is part of the Special Operations community. I worked for a year as a tactics instructor at the Jungle School in Panama, then went to try-outs for Delta Force. Delta is designated as a "special forces detachment," but it is not Special Forces, that is not part of the 18 Branch, the Green Berets everyone hears about. Delta is a very small, very specialized and highly secretive unit that does almost exclusively direct action missions that are politically sensitive. It's known as a counter-terrorist unit, a military SWAT outfit if you will. It's a unit that puts a very high premium on skills for entering man-made structures like buildings and vehicles, and a very strong emphasis on precision marksmanship. After Delta, I taught Military Science for a while at West Point. Then I had a break in service, where I went to Oak Ridge, Tennessee and trained SWAT teams at the Y-12 nuclear weapons facility.

I re-entered active duty, with a loss of rank, in 1988, working for just over a year as a platoon sergeant at 1st Ranger Battalion in Savannah. Then, at the advanced age of 38, I went through Special Forces Assessment and Selection, another torture try-out. I was the oldest guy to finish with my group, probably one of the oldest guys to ever go all the way through it. Like I said, I had a high threshold for pain. Then I went through the Special Forces Qualification Course as a Special Operations Medic. I spoke Spanish, so I was assigned to 7th Special Forces Group, who are responsible for Latin American work. I left 7th Group to be attached to 75th Ranger Regiment in 1993, and accompanied them to Somalia that year. Then I was promoted to Master Sergeant, and you can't be a medic in SF as a Master Sergeant. Your job then is to be a team sergeant in charge of an A Detachment. So I went to 3rd Special Forces, a Sub-Saharan Africa and Caribbean Group, and went with them to Haiti in 1994. In December, 1995, I went on terminal leave, and was officially retired February 1, 1996.

There, now you have my whole career before you.

I should say that I retired under a cloud, and that whole tedious story is in my first book, "Hideous Dream."

(cont'd)