Military Resistance 9I9 : Seventy and Seven
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9.12.11
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Military Resistance 9I9
Truck Bomb Attack Hits Combat Outpost Sayed Abad:
77 U.S. Troops Wounded;
“One Of The Highest Injury Tolls Of The Decade-Long War”
[Thanks to Felicity Arbuthnot, who sent this in.] September 11, 2011 By Associated Press & Radio Free Europe & Reuters Nearly 80 American soldiers were wounded and two Afghan civilians were killed in a Taliban truck bombing targeting an American outpost in eastern Afghanistan. Saturday’s bombing created one of the highest injury tolls of the decade-long war. The explosion blew a 6-meter hole in a wall near the entrance and 25 Afghan nationals were also wounded.
The blast, which occurred late Saturday, shaved the facades from shops outside the Combat Outpost Sayed Abad in Wardak province and broke windows in government offices nearby, said Roshana Wardak, a former parliamentarian who runs a clinic in the nearby town of the same name. Doctor Muslim, the governor of Sayed Abad district, said the blast had also badly damaged the buildings that house the district government, and his cook was among the dead. "A big cloud of smoke rose to the sky and foreign troops’ helicopters were landing and taking off in the base for more than five hours after the blast," said Abdul Karim, a shopkeeper from the town near the base. The windows and doors of more than 100 shops and houses were damaged in the explosion, the governor’s office said. Spokesman Maj. Russell Fox said Sunday that all the international troops at the combat outpost are American. None of the 77 injuries sustained by the Americans were life-threatening. The Taliban claimed responsibility on its website. In a statement emailed to media, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said the truck used in the attack was packed with nine tonnes of explosives.
Combat Outpost Sayed Abad in eastern Wardak province of Afghanistan Sunday, Sept. 11, 2011. (AP Photo/Mohammad Naser)
IRAQ WAR REPORTS
Resistance Action
Sept 10 (Reuters) & 9.11.11 AP BAGHDAD - Insurgents using silenced weapons opened fire at an Iraqi army checkpoint, killing three soldiers in Baghdad’s northeastern Palestine Street, an Interior Ministry source said. BAGHDAD - Insurgents using silenced weapons opened fire at an Iraqi police checkpoint, killing one policeman in Baghdad’s eastern Zayouna district, an Interior Ministry source said. Sunday, police said a roadside bomb targeting a security patrol killed a passer-by and two police in Baghdad’s eastern Shiite Shamaayah area. Three more police were wounded.
AFGHANISTAN WAR REPORTS
Three Oklahoma National Guard Soldiers Killed In Paktia
Oklahoma National guard Spc. Christopher D. Horton 26, of Collinsville, Okla. Horton was killed in Paktia province, Afghanistan, Sept. 9, 2011, when his unit was attacked with small arms fire. (AP Photo/Oklahoma National Guard)...
Oklahoma National guard Sgt. Bret D. Isenhower, 26, of Lamar, Okla. Isenhower was killed in Paktia province, Afghanistan, Sept. 9, 2011, when his unit was attacked with small arms fire. (AP Photo/Oklahoma National Guard)...
Oklahoma National guard Pfc. Tony J. Potter Jr., 20, of Okmulgee, Okla. Potter was killed in Paktia province, Afghanistan, Sept. 9, 2011, when his unit was attacked with small arms fire. (AP Photo/Oklahoma National Guard)...
Foreign Occupation “Servicemember” Killed Somewhere Or Other In Afghanistan:
Nationality Not Announced
September 11, 2011 Reuters A foreign servicemember died following an insurgent attack in eastern Afghanistan, yesterday.
Sgt. Andrew Tobin Dies In Afghanistan
Sgt. Andrew R. Tobin Sep 4, 2011 KSDK Jacksonville, Ill - Funeral services for a soldier from Jacksonville, Illinois who was killed in Afghanistan have been released. The Department of Defense said Sgt. Andrew R. Tobin, 24, was injured when the enemy fired at them in the Kandahar, Afghanistan. Sgt. Tobin was raised in Woodland Hills, CA and Manteno, IL areas and graduated in 2005 from Manteno High School. He attended MacMurray College in Jacksonville, IL and participated in the school’s wrestling program. He enlisted in the US Army in January of 2008 and was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 87th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team of the 10th Mountain Division based at Ft. Drum, NY. He was serving his second tour of duty in Afghanistan. Funeral services for Sgt. Tobin will be held 11:00 a.m. Monday at the Buchanan & Cody Funeral Home in Jacksonville with burial and military honors to follow at Asbury Cemetery, southeast of Jacksonville. The family will meet friends and family from 3:00 to 6:00 p.m. Sunday. Jacksonville is about 90 miles north of St. Louis.
Soldier’s Aunt Pledges To Carry Out His Funeral Wishes
August 28, 2011 by JIM DOUGLAS, WFAA-TV TARRANT COUNTY — Families in Tarrant and Johnson counties are grieving a fallen soldier. Pfc. Jesse Dietrich, 20, was killed in Afghanistan along with a 24-year old sergeant on Thursday. Soldiers brought the news home to Texas on Friday morning. Since then, Auneta Southern has been sorting pictures, reflecting on the life of the nephew she raised as her own son. "There is a story for every picture," she said. And they were good stories, too — of Jesse Dietrich climbing trees and catching fish in rural Tarrant County. Southern doesn’t yet know the details of his final story, only that Pfc. Dietrich was killed while on patrol in Kandahar Province. "He told me not to worry," she said. "That where he was; there was nothing happening." He was only 20 years old. "He wanted a lawn chair and raviolis... in a can," Southern recalled with a laugh. She now believes Dietrich just wanted her to think all was quiet in Afghanistan. Now she thinks of the kid in the kitchen who pulled his drowning sister from the bottom of a pool; the young man who joined the Army two years ago to give his baby boy a secure future. "‘I have to believe that what I’m doing is making a difference,’" Southern quoted him as telling her. Pfc. Dietrich’s father, also a soldier, got the news from his post in Iraq. But Jesse gave his funeral wishes to his Aunt Auneta. She said he wanted his headstone to read: "Life is a game, but sometimes you got to lose." "I will follow his wishes... but that’s real hard," she said, "because it’s so much more serious than a game." Southern has American flags to take to Delaware to meet her nephew’s body. There is a story for every one of Southern’s photographs. And now, every one of them has a sad ending.
POLITICIANS CAN’T BE COUNTED ON TO HALT THE BLOODSHED THE TROOPS HAVE THE POWER TO STOP THE WARS
While U.S. Troops In Afghanistan Die For Chump Change:
U.S. Government Civilian Parasites Get $200,000 Pay For One Year Max Hiding In Secure Compounds
The report estimated that each earns $110,000-$122,733 in base salary; a danger pay bonus of $38,500-$42,957; a post-differential bonus of $38,500-$42,957; Sunday pay of $5,500-$6,137; and overtime pay of $22,000-$30,683. September 8, 2011 By Yochi J. Dreazen, National Journal Group Inc. [EXCERPTS] Add some new numbers to the eye-popping price tag of the unpopular Afghan war: $2 billion, which is the total cost of the Obama administration’s ongoing surge of civilian officials into Afghanistan, and $500,000, which what it costs taxpayers to deploy each federal employee to the war zone for a single year. The numbers come from a new joint audit from a pair of government watchdogs, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction and the State Department’s Office of Inspector General. Much of the current cost of the surge comes from the high price of deploying each federal employee to Afghanistan for a year, which the report estimated at between $410,000 and $570,000 per person. The number of civilian officials -- drawn from departments like State, Treasury, Justice, and Agriculture -- has tripled since 2009, rising from just over 300 to 1,040 as of this past June. But the employees don’t come cheap. The report estimated that each earns $110,000-$122,733 in base salary; a danger pay bonus of $38,500-$42,957; a post-differential bonus of $38,500-$42,957; Sunday pay of $5,500-$6,137; and overtime pay of $22,000-$30,683.
The additional costs come from giving the employees hazardous-terrain training, living accommodations, and two trips home per year. The breakdown of such expenses, which has never been released in such detail by the government before, will fuel new political unease about the Afghan war, which majorities of the country believe is no longer worth the high human or financial costs. Critics of the administration’s war strategy are also likely to seize on the fact that the cost of deploying the civilian officials –- most of whom cannot leave their secured compounds in Kabul for security reasons –- are rapidly approaching the costs of supporting combat personnel battling the Taliban around the country. The enormity of the new figures raises the obvious question of what U.S. taxpayers, who have long since turned against the war, are getting for the money. The answer is more than a little disheartening. In one of his final interviews before leaving Kabul this summer, then- American Ambassador Karl Eikenberry told The New York Times that the civilian surge was one of his proudest accomplishments, exceeded only by his role in fostering the growth of the Afghan military. “The second major achievement is having led the civilian surge,” he told the newspaper. “I think on our watch we did make a difference.” But the Inspector General of Eikenberry’s own State Department has consistently taken a far more jaundiced view of the civilian surge. In a scathing report in March 2010, the department’s internal watchdogs cited an array of shortcomings, from security constraints which prevented civilian personnel from actually interacting with many ordinary Afghans, to short tours which meant that the officials spent most of their time simply getting up to speed on the country’s complexities only to leave once they had managed to do so. In particular, it noted that poor security "limits the embassy staff’s exposure to Afghans other than regular government interlocutors and constrains the reporting and advocacy work that U.S. direct-hires from all agencies were brought to Afghanistan to undertake." At the same time, it says key departments like the embassy’s political affairs section were hampered by inexperienced officials serving in Afghanistan solely for one year. "The biggest challenge facing (the political affairs section} is the combination of one-year tours, inexperienced officers, and simultaneous rotation of all personnel," the report said. “As the inspection began, no officer had been in the job for longer than two months. “Almost all except the counselor and deputy were on their first political reporting tour. Many had not received a hand-over memo from their predecessor, and most did not
receive an orientation to the section’s work although they did receive the mission’s overall administrative orientation."
UNREMITTING HELL ON EARTH; ALL HOME NOW
US soldiers gather near a destroyed vehicle and protect their faces from rotor wash, as their wounded comrades are airlifted by a Medevac helicopter in Kandahar on August 23. [AFP]
A US soldier is carried out of a Medevac helicopter of the 159th Brigade Task Force Thunder in Kandahar on August 24. [AFP]
An armored vehicle making a delivery stops where the road becomes narrow and impassable, a few hundred yards from a U.S. Marine outpost, Patrol Base 302, in Helmand province, southern Afghanistan, Aug. 26, 2011. The Marines living in austere conditions at PB-302 exchange fire regularly with Taliban who attack from multiple directions. (AP Photo/Brennan Linsley)
Staff Sgt. Everett Bracey, 28, of Kennett, Mo., right, and Pfc. Michael Cagle, 20, of San Carlos, Texas, with the U.S. Army’s 25th Infantry Division, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Battalion 27th Infantry Regiment based in Schofield Barracks, Hawaii, taker cover during an indirect fire attack by insurgents Sept. 5, 2011 in the village of Asmar, Kunar province, Afghanistan. (AP Photo/David Goldman)...
Soldiers with the U.S. Army’s 25th Infantry Division, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Battalion 27th Infantry Regiment based in Schofield Barracks, Hawaii, moving towards cover across a riverbed during an indirect fire attack by insurgents Sept. 5, 2011 in the village of Asmar, Kunar province, Afghanistan. (AP Photo/David Goldman)...
IF YOU DON’T LIKE THE RESISTANCE END THE OCCUPATIONS
LIBYA WAR REPORTS
Venezuelan Politician Tells His BF Q To Fight To The Death:
Chavez Says To Q No Asylum Here For You:
“Win Or Die"
Sep 5, 2011 By Charlie Devereux, Bloomberg [Excerpts]
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez urged Muammar Qaddafi to resist a rebel siege in Libya, saying that his ally has no plans to leave the embattled North African nation. "Nobody knows where Qaddafi is," Chavez said today in a phone interview broadcast on state television. "I’m sure that he’s very far from thinking about leaving Libya. He’ll resist with what power he has left." Chavez, who last month pledged support to Qaddafi and called the armed conflict in Libya the result of "imperial insanity," said he doesn’t have information on the leader’s whereabouts. When asked if he would offer Qaddafi asylum, Chavez recalled a conversation he had with Cuba’s Fidel Castro about the capture of Saddam Hussein after Iraq was invaded. Chavez said Fidel told him that in such situations "what we have to do is win or die."
MILITARY NEWS
HOW MANY MORE FOR OBAMA’S WARS?
Sgt. Philip Anderson cradles his son Vincent Anderson, 2 months, during a deployment ceremony Sept. 11, 2011 for the 1086th Transportation Company at Guinn Auditorium, Louisiana College in Pineville, La. Based out of Bunkie, the 1086 is deploying to Afghanistan after two months of mobilization training at Fort Hood, Texas. (AP Photo/Melinda Martinez - The Town Talk)
2,800 From Fort Shafter Off To Obama’s Imperial Slaughterhouse:
25th CAB To Deploy To Afghanistan In January
Sep 8, 2011 Army Times The 25th Combat Aviation Brigade will deploy to Afghanistan in January, the Defense Department announced Thursday. The 2,800 soldiers from Fort Shafter, Hawaii, will deploy as part of the regular rotation of forces in Afghanistan, according to DoD. The announcement said the CAB is scheduled to deploy for one year, even though the Army is moving to nine-month deployments for most units beginning in January. “This unit is scheduled to deploy for up to 12 months, potentially,” said Paul Boyce, a spokesman for Forces Command. “It’s an aviation unit, which has historically been in high demand.” Soldiers from the 25th CAB likely will replace the 159th Combat Aviation Brigade of Fort Campbell, Ky., which has been deployed since February. The 25th CAB was last deployed from October 2009 to October 2010 in Iraq.
A Soldier’s Heroism During The Sept. 8, 2009 Ambush In Ganjgal Ignored By Command:
A Marine Who Fought By His Side And Is Getting The Medal Of Honor Says “It Is ‘Ridiculous’ That Swenson Hasn’t Yet Been Recognized For His Heroism”
“The Lack Of Recognition Raises Questions About Whether Swenson’s Angry Criticism Of Army Officers, Who Repeatedly Refused Fire Support That Day, Is The Reason He Hasn’t Been Decorated”
Army Capt. William Swenson calls for air support on his radio after Afghan security forces and their U.S. military trainers were ambushed Sept. 8, 2009. The force was on its way to Ganjgal. Photo: JONATHAN S. LANDAY/MCCLATCHY TRIBUNE NEWS SERVICE September 12, 2011 By Dan Lamothe, Army Times [Excerpts] In a rocky mountainside trench, a soldier and a Marine worked in tandem under an avalanche of enemy fire to retrieve the bodies of a four-man training team killed in eastern Afghanistan. Army Capt. William Swenson and Marine Cpl. Dakota Meyer already had braved enemy fire repeatedly during the Sept. 8, 2009, ambush in Ganjgal, an insurgent-held village in Kunar province’s Sarkani district. On a last, urgent dash into the village, Meyer charged through enemy fire to find the missing service members, and Swenson joined him in the chaos to load their bloody bodies and gear onto a Humvee and take them home. On Sept. 15, Meyer is expected to receive the Medal of Honor at a White House ceremony. Swenson, on the other hand, has received nothing. The lack of recognition raises questions about whether Swenson’s angry criticism of Army officers, who repeatedly refused fire support that day, is the reason he hasn’t been decorated.
It is “ridiculous” that Swenson hasn’t yet been recognized for his heroism, said Meyer. Swenson repeatedly braved fire in the battle, working alongside the Marines to engage enemy fighters and evacuate U.S. and Afghan casualties from a kill zone, the Medal of Honor nominee said. “I’ll put it this way,” Meyer said. “If it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t be alive today.” An Army source with knowledge of the awards process said Swenson is “up for some kind of valor award,” but he did not say whether it could be a Medal of Honor or Distinguished Service Cross, the second-highest valor award, or a lesser medal. By policy, the U.S. military does not typically discuss pending military awards, said Bill Costello, a spokesman with Army Human Resources Command, Fort Knox, Ky. Meyer, now a sergeant in the Individual Ready Reserve, and Swenson worked with other service members to save pinned-down forces after a group of 13 U.S. military trainers, 60 Afghan soldiers and 20 Afghan border police were caught in a devastating U-shaped ambush in the Ganjgal Valley, near the Pakistan border. Coalition forces engaged in a six-hour firefight in which fire support was repeatedly denied by Army officers at nearby Forward Operating Base Joyce. The officers — with Task Force Chosin, a unit comprising soldiers from 1st Battalion, 32nd Infantry Regi-ment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division, out of Fort Drum, N.Y. — were later cited following a military investigation for “negligent” leadership leading “directly to the loss of life” on the battlefield. Swenson — then a member of 1st Brigade, 1st Infantry Division, out of Fort Riley, Kan. — was deployed to oversee the training of Afghan border police in Sarkani. A Ranger School graduate with previous deployments to Afghanistan and Iraq, he had participated in the planning of the mission, and was assured fire support would be available. U.S. forces left Joyce early that morning to meet tribal leaders in Ganjgal, but the mission turned sour quickly. Insurgent fighters opened fire with small arms, rockets and rocket-propelled grenades shortly after dawn, Meyer said. The four-man team of Marine trainers in the front of the element was quickly pinned down. The team pleaded for fire support, a military investigation later found, but was denied because officers at Joyce’s tactical operations center underestimated how bad the ambush was and were concerned about killing civilians or U.S. service members with artillery rounds. After the Marine team stopped responding to their radio, other U.S. forces reported them missing and began a frantic search to find them. Swenson and other U.S. forces were farther from the village but faced a torrent of enemy fire. He began requesting fire support shortly after the shooting started,
but after a few early artillery shells arrived, he and other troops were denied additional rounds. Swenson and Fabayo defended the group from advancing Taliban fighters who were dressed in Afghan National Army uniforms and helmets, according to military documents. Swenson killed at least two or three of them with a grenade at close range. Fabayo and Swenson also worked together to evacuate more casualties under fire and cared for the wounded, including Sgt. 1st Class Kenneth Westbrook, Swenson’s top noncommissioned officer, who later died. Meyer found the Marine team members shot to death. Meyer and Swenson faced enemy gunfire to retrieve the bodies. Swenson “has received nothing at all,” Westbrook’s widow, Charlene, said. “I don’t understand how the Army isn’t awarding him something that he clearly, clearly deserved.” Interviewed for the investigation, Swenson unloaded on the rules of engagement used in Afghanistan, the leadership of officers who didn’t send help and the second-guessing he experienced while requesting fire support, according to military documents. “When I’m being second-guessed by higher or somebody that’s sitting in an airconditioned TOC, why (the) hell am I even out there in the first place?” Swenson told investigators. “… I am the ground commander … I want that f---er, and I am willing to accept the con-sequences of that f---er.” Swenson added that he had been second-guessed on previous occasions, and was frustrated by a complicated process to clear fires, even under duress. “I always get these crazy messages saying that, ‘Hey, brigade is saying that you can’t see the target,’ ” Swenson told investigators. “Brigade, you’re in Jalalabad. Fuck you, you know? I am staring at the target … Just people second guessing. “If I am willing to put my initials on it, I understand the importance of making sure the rounds hit where they are supposed to hit. I understand the consequences of civilian casualties.” Swenson could not be reached for comment. He left active-duty service in February, Costello said. He lives a private life in Washington state, and is still disenchanted with the Army, said Charlene Westbrook, who remains in contact with her late husband’s former commander. “He, in my opinion is real humble. He has not said anything one way or the other about being pissed or mad about it,” she said. But he is deserving, she added. “He’s just an awesome guy.”
“The Pay Gap Between Officers And Enlisted Is Ridiculous”
“How About They Reduce The Officers’ Pay And Benefits And See How That Will Help The Budget?”
Letters To The Editor Army Times September 12, 2011 I find it alarming that an officer and enlisted, when compared, their retirement benefits are so far apart. Why does an enlisted soldier receive $43,000 and an officer receives almost five times that amount, $211,000? The pay gap between officers and enlisted is ridiculous. When will Americans and Congress look at the pay scales and start closing the grand canyon of a gap? How about they reduce the officers’ pay and benefits and see how that will help the budget? Staff Sgt. Paul Martin Fort Riley, Kan.
DO YOU HAVE A FRIEND OR RELATIVE IN THE MILITARY?
Forward Military Resistance along, or send us the address if you wish and we’ll send it regularly. Whether in Afghanistan, Iraq or stuck on a base in the USA, this is extra important for your service friend, too often cut off from access to encouraging news of growing resistance to the wars and economic injustice, inside the armed services and at home. Send email requests to address up top or write to: The Military Resistance, Box 126, 2576 Broadway, New York, N.Y. 10025-5657. Phone: 888.711.2550
War Profiteering Traitors At Work:
Sikorsky Aircraft Corp. “Overcharged The U.S. Army $2,393.41 For A Plastic Wiring Box Cover Worth $181.70”
“Sikorsky Charged The Army $11.8 Million, Or 51.4 Percent More Than Fair And Reasonable Prices”
Sep 8, 2011 By Tony Capaccio, Bloomberg [Excerpts] Sikorsky Aircraft Corp. overcharged the U.S. Army for 28 UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter spare parts, including $2,393.41 for a plastic wiring box cover worth $181.70, according to the office of the Defense Department’s Inspector General. Sikorsky, a unit of Hartford, Connecticut-based United Technologies Corp. (UTX), charged the Army $7,814.88 for a rotor used to cool radiator oil that cost another Pentagon agency $1,536.65, according to the 65-page audit. Bloomberg News obtained the report, a three-page summary of which the Inspector General made public today. The audit cited excessively priced parts and costs based on pricing data that wasn’t current, complete or accurate from the latest of three Sikorsky contracts with the Corpus Christi, Texas, Army depot. The contracts were valued cumulatively at about $1.1 billion. Overall “we calculated that Sikorsky charged the Army $11.8 million, or 51.4 percent more than fair and reasonable prices,” between 2008 and 2010, the audit said. About $158,531 of that excess was paid for the plastic wiring box covers. “If not corrected Army officials will pay excessive profits of approximately $16.6 million over the remaining two years of the contract,” including $249,986 in future wiring box overcharges, it said. Sikorsky also charged progressively increased prices for titanium sheath assemblies used to protect Black Hawk rotor blades -- the helicopter’s most expensive item, the audit said.
Sikorsky’s assembly prices increased 114.3 percent to $17,004.39 each in 2008 from $7,936.57 each in 2007. “Sikorsky made a 28.6 percent profit supplying the item in 2010 and the profit will increase annually by 4 percent through 2012 due to the contract clause escalation,” the audit said. Sikorsky has agreed to provide $1 million in refunds, including some for the wiring box covers. The Army Aviation and Missile Life Cycle Management Command, which manages the contracts, “needs to correct prices and seek” another $11 million in refunds, the audit said. The Army also must revise contract clauses to avoid another $21 million in “excessive costs” that would be triggered by escalation clauses, the audit said. The Army didn’t adequately analyze Sikorsky’s prices, the audit said. The command didn’t have “adequate procedures to ensure” Sikorsky’s costs were reasonable for use in negotiations, it said.
Florida Trash Vote Down VA Facility:
City Leaders Wednesday Called The Proposed Veterans’ Treatment Program “Incompatible” With Its Plan “For Bringing Retail Down To Our Main Street”
09.07.11 By Michael Vasquez, The Miami Herald The night began patriotically — with the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks only days away, the Oakland Park City Commission honored its fire and police officers. The night ended divisively — with Oakland Park city leaders rejecting a proposed Veterans Administration treatment program as incompatible with the city’s plan for a retail-focused, family-friendly downtown. “I fully support our first responders, our soldiers, our veterans,” said City Commissioner John Adornato, one of those to vote against the veteran’s center. But, he added, “this is not the place given our long-term vision for bringing retail down to our Main Street.” Oakland Park’s Main Street downtown area runs north from Oakland Park Boulevard near the intersection with Dixie Highway.
The city has invested millions of dollars in transforming its downtown into a pedestrianfriendly, visually-appealing thoroughfare, with new streetscapes and landscaping among the many improvements. However, more than half of the buildings on Main Street are vacant despite the city’s development effort, pointed out Bonnie Miskek, an attorney representing WSSA LLC, the developer behind the project. “We hate to say it, but the vision wasn’t good,’’ Miskek said after the commissioners voted against the project. The vote was 2-1, with two commissioners abstaining. A former women’s shelter on the boulevard was being eyed by the Veterans Administration as for a pilot program, one of only four in the nation. The others will be in Denver, San Diego and Philadelphia. Previously, Miskek had told the city’s Planning and Zoning Board that the experimental VA program is “designed to efficiently integrate the veterans back into the community, assisting them with the transition from typical military dependent living to self-sufficient independent living.” A maximum of 40 veterans would have enrolled in the three-month program to learn life skills through vocational and education programs. John Sabty of WSSA had repeatedly assured the city that “undesirables would not use the new facility.’’ “If they have severe mental problems or substance abuse issues, this won’t be the facility for them,” Sabty said. “The VA has other places for that.” Resident Jack Doren said veterans were being used as an emotional selling point for the developer who was trying to save money by not building somewhere where such facilities are already allowed. Supporters of the center countered that the Oakland Park site perfectly fit both the cost and layout design criteria laid out by the federal government. Veterans, along with some Oakland Park residents, pushed hard for the veteran’s center to be approved — calling it a much-needed program that would also spark investment in the city’s downtown.
Troops Invited:
Comments, arguments, articles, and letters from service men and women, and veterans, are especially welcome. Write to Box 126, 2576 Broadway, New York, N.Y. 10025-5657 or email [email protected]: Name, I.D., withheld unless you request publication. Same address to unsubscribe.
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.” “The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppose.” Frederick Douglass, 1852
Hope for change doesn’t cut it when you’re still losing buddies. -- J.D. Englehart, Iraq Veterans Against The War
“The Democratic Base, To The Extent That It Votes, Will Vote For Obama In
2012, Seeing Him As The ‘Lesser Of Evils’"
“But He Is, In Fact, The ‘More Effective Evil,’ Having Done More Damage To Democratic Core Constituencies Than Any Republican Could Dream Of”
09/06/2011 By Glen Ford, Black Agenda Radio It has begun. Obama’s 2012 presidential campaign saw union workers in Detroit, a large proportion of them Black, spending their Labor Day chanting "Four More Years!" after four of the worst years in African American history, from an economic standpoint. Barack Obama has been a prime shaper of events for the last three of those years, since October 2008, when he singlehandedly saved George Bush’s bank bailout, after it had initially been defeated. Obama then assembled an economic team comprised of the same people that had set the stage for the meltdown, less than a decade before. He spent the first year of his presidency making health care safe for the drug racketeers and private insurers, through backroom deals that froze out members of Congress most friendly to Blacks and labor, the Democratic Party’s core constituencies. Within a year, the left wing of the Democratic Party was beaten down, demoralized and isolated at the hands of the First Black President. From then on, the parameters of the national political conversation were confined to a narrow spectrum, that went from Obama, the corporate, center-right Democrat, to the Tea Party, the corporate-financed white nationalists. Nothing favorable to Blacks or labor could possibly emerge from such a toxic political mix. But it was a mix of Obama’s making. This was Obama-Brew, and he was the bartender through two years when the Democrats, with a congressional majority, were encouraged by their president to behave as if the Republicans were in charge. In 2010, the Republicans did take charge in the House, and it was as if they had seized the entire government. In the second year, he dropped even the pretense that jobs were a top priority.
There was no push for a national jobs program in Obama’s first year, despite good chances for passage, because Obama did not want one. Labor’s most sought-after legislation, the card-check bill that might reverse the steady decline in union membership, got nowhere in the Democratic Congress, because Obama did not support it. Then, in the second year, he dropped even the pretense that jobs were a top priority, and began shouting like a Republican banshee about deficits and the need for "austerity." Blacks saw their futures flushed down the toilet while Obama dismissed them with nonsense about fictitious rising tides. Latinos, whose growing numbers are shaping America’s future, watched while the Democrat that two-thirds of them voted for deported more immigrants than his Republican predecessor. Who has Obama NOT betrayed, in the traditional Democratic base? The environmentalists got their education in Obamaism last week, when the president made the executive decision to stick with George Bush’s pollution standards, to great applause from big business. For those who were looking for a president who would stand up to Wall Street and the Pentagon, Obama has been a dismal failure. But for those on the Right whose mission in life is to utterly smash the power of Blacks and unions, Obama has been a godsend. The Democratic base, to the extent that it votes, will vote for Obama in 2012, seeing him as the "lesser of evils." But he is, in fact, the "more effective evil," having done more damage to Democratic core constituencies than any Republican could dream of.
Rumsfeld Says Obama Has Accepted Bush Regime Policies On Patriot Act, Guantanamo, “Cooperating Against Terrorism” And On And On And On
07 September 11 By Tim Mak, Politico [Excerpts] Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld says President Barack Obama has come to accept much of the Bush Doctrine out of necessity, despite what he campaigned on in 2008.
Rumsfeld said that Obama needed to keep the Guantanamo Bay detention center open because of national security concerns, and it was the best solution among a host of bad options. "They ended up keeping Guantanamo open not because they like it - we didn’t like it either - but they couldn’t think of a better solution," Rumsfeld told Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren on Tuesday. Rumsfeld then listed a handful of other Bush administration policies that have continued into the Obama administration, something that he sees as vindication of the policies. "The same is true with the Patriot Act, and military commissions, and indefinite detention. All of those things were criticized but today are still in place two-and-a-half years later because they are the best alternative to the other choices - and they are in fact successful in keeping America safer," he says. President Obama had campaigned against many of the major programs of President Bush’s war on terror, but often his national security policy has mirrored that of his predecessor. "I think what they did was they campaigned again the Bush approach - and once they got in they realized the 90-nation coalition that was put together was successful in sharing intelligence, and tracking bank accounts, and cooperating against terrorism," said Rumsfeld.
1968:
FBI Urges Using Vegetarians To Split War Resisters League:
“One Of The Most Idiotic Notions To Seep Out Of The FBI”
From: David McReynolds Subject: Too funny not to pass along: FBI urges using vegetarians to split WRL Date: Sep 7, 2011 Tonight, in one of those absolutely endless "sortings" that happen to those of us who pass 80 and are trying to see what can be tossed, I found a printout obtained under the FOIA of one part of my FBI file which I’d never noticed before. This was dated 10/14/68 and it seems to have been in the CHAOS file. I hadn’t noticed it before tonight - easy with hundreds of pages of the past floating around your apt. I quote - and this is very brief - nine lines . . .
******************************************** “Regarding Director’s orders via memorandum #CDP-WRL@McRzv major disruption of the War Resisters League can be accomplished by collaborators (XXXXXXX) and (XXXXXXX) who can capitalize on the fact that David McReynolds is reportedly of violent opposition to vegetarian foods and lifestyle. “There has been a lot of consternation within the inner circles of the organization with respect to this. Collaborators can instigate disruptions at upcoming meetings of League and render the League inoperable.” It is true I am not a vegetarian (and lifestyle?) but this strikes me as one of the most idiotic notions to seep out of the FBI. I’ll also pass this on to friends in NYC who will enjoy it - including Ed Hedemann and Ruth Benn, ardent vegetarians.
DANGER: POLITICIANS AT WORK
“The single largest failure of the anti-war movement at this point is the lack of outreach to the troops.” Tim Goodrich, Iraq Veterans Against The War
CLASS WAR REPORTS
Stupid Racists Of The New York City Police Department Get Caught In One More Example Of The Stupid Racism Of The New York City Police Department:
A Case Of Continued Black-And-White Police Intolerance
Council Member Jumaane Williams and Kirsten John Foy, Director of Community Relations for Public Advocate Bill de Blasio discuss their arrest after the West Indian Day Parade Tuesday. Photo: Bryan Smith for News September 7th 2011 By Juan Gonzalez, New York Daily News It is the kind of humiliating incident with police every African American or Latino man in this city fears. The kind Jumaane Williams, 35, thought he had left behind. The son of a doctor from Grenada, Williams, 35, was elected to the City Council from Central Brooklyn in 2009. He is well-educated, articulate and a rising star among black politicians.
Late Monday, at the end of the West Indian Day Parade, Williams became another young, black man roughed up and handcuffed by cops for the flimsiest of reasons. What happened to him and his boyhood friend Kirsten John Foy, 35, a top aide to Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, has become so appallingly routine in this town it rarely makes news anymore. The two were walking through a police "frozen zone" to get to a postparade event at the Brooklyn Museum. They say police supervisors at two previous checkpoints gave them the go-ahead to enter the zone, but cops at a third checkpoint refused to let them proceed. "We showed them our IDs but they didn’t want to hear of it, or even look at them," Foy said. Williams happens to be a tall man who wears his hair in dreadlocks. A community organizer and former student of mine at Brooklyn College, he is well-versed in conflict resolution. One of the lecturers I would invite to my class was a young police lieutenant named Eric Adams. Adams, now state senator, always explained how to act in a street encounter with police. On Monday, Williams pulled out his cell phone and called a police chief he knew who could confirm his identity for the police officers at the parade. He was on the phone with the chief when a group of cops surrounded him and started to push him out of the zone. The next thing he knew, he was in cuffs. His buddy Foy is hardly a novice at dealing with the police. Before he worked for de Blasio, Foy was one of Al Sharpton’s closest aides, and on the Sean Bell case. An amateur video shows Foy backing up as a cop moves toward him. The cop grabs Foy in a headlock, trips him to the ground and handcuffs him. De Blasio rushed back to the scene after his aide was arrested. De Blasio, who is white, told me he had no problem crossing numerous checkpoints by merely showing his ID. This is not the only incident involving police overreaction to black leaders at the parade.
Last year, Daniel Goodine, 54, an aide to City Councilwoman Letitia James, was arrested at the same spot. Goodine was trying to escort Latrice Walker, a lawyer who was feeling sick, from the parade route to a rest room at the museum. They were stopped by a policeman at a barricade. Goodine tried to insist the woman needed help. He ended up arrested for disorderly conduct and resisting arrest. Walker represented him at his trial, where he was acquitted. The most obvious sign that our city has a widespread problem is the number of stopand-frisk incidents recorded by police. Each year, they keep skyrocketing. For the first six months of 2011, there were 362,150 stops. That’s about 2,000 every day; 84% of them involved blacks and Hispanics. It took the arrest of a City Councilman to remind us that black and Latino men deserve more respect from police on our streets.
GOT AN OPINION?
Comments from service men and women, and veterans, are especially welcome. Write to Box 126, 2576 Broadway, New York, N.Y. 10025-5657 or send to [email protected]: Name, I.D., withheld unless you request identification published.
No Problem For Pyramid Builders
Protesters tear down a concrete wall built in front of the Israeli embassy in Cairo September 9, 2011. REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh
Protesters celebrate as a concrete wall built around a building housing the Israeli embassy comes down in Cairo September 9, 2011. REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh
An Egyptian protester holds documents from the Israeli embassy after it was attacked in Cairo September 10, 2011. Hundreds of Egyptians stormed the building housing Israel’s mission in Cairo and threw embassy documents and its national flag from windows. REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh
A protester holds the Egyptian national flag as a fire rages outside the building housing the Israeli embassy in Cairo, Egypt, Sept. 9, 2011. [Photo credit unknown]
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9.12.11
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Military Resistance 9I9
Truck Bomb Attack Hits Combat Outpost Sayed Abad:
77 U.S. Troops Wounded;
“One Of The Highest Injury Tolls Of The Decade-Long War”
[Thanks to Felicity Arbuthnot, who sent this in.] September 11, 2011 By Associated Press & Radio Free Europe & Reuters Nearly 80 American soldiers were wounded and two Afghan civilians were killed in a Taliban truck bombing targeting an American outpost in eastern Afghanistan. Saturday’s bombing created one of the highest injury tolls of the decade-long war. The explosion blew a 6-meter hole in a wall near the entrance and 25 Afghan nationals were also wounded.
The blast, which occurred late Saturday, shaved the facades from shops outside the Combat Outpost Sayed Abad in Wardak province and broke windows in government offices nearby, said Roshana Wardak, a former parliamentarian who runs a clinic in the nearby town of the same name. Doctor Muslim, the governor of Sayed Abad district, said the blast had also badly damaged the buildings that house the district government, and his cook was among the dead. "A big cloud of smoke rose to the sky and foreign troops’ helicopters were landing and taking off in the base for more than five hours after the blast," said Abdul Karim, a shopkeeper from the town near the base. The windows and doors of more than 100 shops and houses were damaged in the explosion, the governor’s office said. Spokesman Maj. Russell Fox said Sunday that all the international troops at the combat outpost are American. None of the 77 injuries sustained by the Americans were life-threatening. The Taliban claimed responsibility on its website. In a statement emailed to media, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said the truck used in the attack was packed with nine tonnes of explosives.
Combat Outpost Sayed Abad in eastern Wardak province of Afghanistan Sunday, Sept. 11, 2011. (AP Photo/Mohammad Naser)
IRAQ WAR REPORTS
Resistance Action
Sept 10 (Reuters) & 9.11.11 AP BAGHDAD - Insurgents using silenced weapons opened fire at an Iraqi army checkpoint, killing three soldiers in Baghdad’s northeastern Palestine Street, an Interior Ministry source said. BAGHDAD - Insurgents using silenced weapons opened fire at an Iraqi police checkpoint, killing one policeman in Baghdad’s eastern Zayouna district, an Interior Ministry source said. Sunday, police said a roadside bomb targeting a security patrol killed a passer-by and two police in Baghdad’s eastern Shiite Shamaayah area. Three more police were wounded.
AFGHANISTAN WAR REPORTS
Three Oklahoma National Guard Soldiers Killed In Paktia
Oklahoma National guard Spc. Christopher D. Horton 26, of Collinsville, Okla. Horton was killed in Paktia province, Afghanistan, Sept. 9, 2011, when his unit was attacked with small arms fire. (AP Photo/Oklahoma National Guard)...
Oklahoma National guard Sgt. Bret D. Isenhower, 26, of Lamar, Okla. Isenhower was killed in Paktia province, Afghanistan, Sept. 9, 2011, when his unit was attacked with small arms fire. (AP Photo/Oklahoma National Guard)...
Oklahoma National guard Pfc. Tony J. Potter Jr., 20, of Okmulgee, Okla. Potter was killed in Paktia province, Afghanistan, Sept. 9, 2011, when his unit was attacked with small arms fire. (AP Photo/Oklahoma National Guard)...
Foreign Occupation “Servicemember” Killed Somewhere Or Other In Afghanistan:
Nationality Not Announced
September 11, 2011 Reuters A foreign servicemember died following an insurgent attack in eastern Afghanistan, yesterday.
Sgt. Andrew Tobin Dies In Afghanistan
Sgt. Andrew R. Tobin Sep 4, 2011 KSDK Jacksonville, Ill - Funeral services for a soldier from Jacksonville, Illinois who was killed in Afghanistan have been released. The Department of Defense said Sgt. Andrew R. Tobin, 24, was injured when the enemy fired at them in the Kandahar, Afghanistan. Sgt. Tobin was raised in Woodland Hills, CA and Manteno, IL areas and graduated in 2005 from Manteno High School. He attended MacMurray College in Jacksonville, IL and participated in the school’s wrestling program. He enlisted in the US Army in January of 2008 and was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 87th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team of the 10th Mountain Division based at Ft. Drum, NY. He was serving his second tour of duty in Afghanistan. Funeral services for Sgt. Tobin will be held 11:00 a.m. Monday at the Buchanan & Cody Funeral Home in Jacksonville with burial and military honors to follow at Asbury Cemetery, southeast of Jacksonville. The family will meet friends and family from 3:00 to 6:00 p.m. Sunday. Jacksonville is about 90 miles north of St. Louis.
Soldier’s Aunt Pledges To Carry Out His Funeral Wishes
August 28, 2011 by JIM DOUGLAS, WFAA-TV TARRANT COUNTY — Families in Tarrant and Johnson counties are grieving a fallen soldier. Pfc. Jesse Dietrich, 20, was killed in Afghanistan along with a 24-year old sergeant on Thursday. Soldiers brought the news home to Texas on Friday morning. Since then, Auneta Southern has been sorting pictures, reflecting on the life of the nephew she raised as her own son. "There is a story for every picture," she said. And they were good stories, too — of Jesse Dietrich climbing trees and catching fish in rural Tarrant County. Southern doesn’t yet know the details of his final story, only that Pfc. Dietrich was killed while on patrol in Kandahar Province. "He told me not to worry," she said. "That where he was; there was nothing happening." He was only 20 years old. "He wanted a lawn chair and raviolis... in a can," Southern recalled with a laugh. She now believes Dietrich just wanted her to think all was quiet in Afghanistan. Now she thinks of the kid in the kitchen who pulled his drowning sister from the bottom of a pool; the young man who joined the Army two years ago to give his baby boy a secure future. "‘I have to believe that what I’m doing is making a difference,’" Southern quoted him as telling her. Pfc. Dietrich’s father, also a soldier, got the news from his post in Iraq. But Jesse gave his funeral wishes to his Aunt Auneta. She said he wanted his headstone to read: "Life is a game, but sometimes you got to lose." "I will follow his wishes... but that’s real hard," she said, "because it’s so much more serious than a game." Southern has American flags to take to Delaware to meet her nephew’s body. There is a story for every one of Southern’s photographs. And now, every one of them has a sad ending.
POLITICIANS CAN’T BE COUNTED ON TO HALT THE BLOODSHED THE TROOPS HAVE THE POWER TO STOP THE WARS
While U.S. Troops In Afghanistan Die For Chump Change:
U.S. Government Civilian Parasites Get $200,000 Pay For One Year Max Hiding In Secure Compounds
The report estimated that each earns $110,000-$122,733 in base salary; a danger pay bonus of $38,500-$42,957; a post-differential bonus of $38,500-$42,957; Sunday pay of $5,500-$6,137; and overtime pay of $22,000-$30,683. September 8, 2011 By Yochi J. Dreazen, National Journal Group Inc. [EXCERPTS] Add some new numbers to the eye-popping price tag of the unpopular Afghan war: $2 billion, which is the total cost of the Obama administration’s ongoing surge of civilian officials into Afghanistan, and $500,000, which what it costs taxpayers to deploy each federal employee to the war zone for a single year. The numbers come from a new joint audit from a pair of government watchdogs, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction and the State Department’s Office of Inspector General. Much of the current cost of the surge comes from the high price of deploying each federal employee to Afghanistan for a year, which the report estimated at between $410,000 and $570,000 per person. The number of civilian officials -- drawn from departments like State, Treasury, Justice, and Agriculture -- has tripled since 2009, rising from just over 300 to 1,040 as of this past June. But the employees don’t come cheap. The report estimated that each earns $110,000-$122,733 in base salary; a danger pay bonus of $38,500-$42,957; a post-differential bonus of $38,500-$42,957; Sunday pay of $5,500-$6,137; and overtime pay of $22,000-$30,683.
The additional costs come from giving the employees hazardous-terrain training, living accommodations, and two trips home per year. The breakdown of such expenses, which has never been released in such detail by the government before, will fuel new political unease about the Afghan war, which majorities of the country believe is no longer worth the high human or financial costs. Critics of the administration’s war strategy are also likely to seize on the fact that the cost of deploying the civilian officials –- most of whom cannot leave their secured compounds in Kabul for security reasons –- are rapidly approaching the costs of supporting combat personnel battling the Taliban around the country. The enormity of the new figures raises the obvious question of what U.S. taxpayers, who have long since turned against the war, are getting for the money. The answer is more than a little disheartening. In one of his final interviews before leaving Kabul this summer, then- American Ambassador Karl Eikenberry told The New York Times that the civilian surge was one of his proudest accomplishments, exceeded only by his role in fostering the growth of the Afghan military. “The second major achievement is having led the civilian surge,” he told the newspaper. “I think on our watch we did make a difference.” But the Inspector General of Eikenberry’s own State Department has consistently taken a far more jaundiced view of the civilian surge. In a scathing report in March 2010, the department’s internal watchdogs cited an array of shortcomings, from security constraints which prevented civilian personnel from actually interacting with many ordinary Afghans, to short tours which meant that the officials spent most of their time simply getting up to speed on the country’s complexities only to leave once they had managed to do so. In particular, it noted that poor security "limits the embassy staff’s exposure to Afghans other than regular government interlocutors and constrains the reporting and advocacy work that U.S. direct-hires from all agencies were brought to Afghanistan to undertake." At the same time, it says key departments like the embassy’s political affairs section were hampered by inexperienced officials serving in Afghanistan solely for one year. "The biggest challenge facing (the political affairs section} is the combination of one-year tours, inexperienced officers, and simultaneous rotation of all personnel," the report said. “As the inspection began, no officer had been in the job for longer than two months. “Almost all except the counselor and deputy were on their first political reporting tour. Many had not received a hand-over memo from their predecessor, and most did not
receive an orientation to the section’s work although they did receive the mission’s overall administrative orientation."
UNREMITTING HELL ON EARTH; ALL HOME NOW
US soldiers gather near a destroyed vehicle and protect their faces from rotor wash, as their wounded comrades are airlifted by a Medevac helicopter in Kandahar on August 23. [AFP]
A US soldier is carried out of a Medevac helicopter of the 159th Brigade Task Force Thunder in Kandahar on August 24. [AFP]
An armored vehicle making a delivery stops where the road becomes narrow and impassable, a few hundred yards from a U.S. Marine outpost, Patrol Base 302, in Helmand province, southern Afghanistan, Aug. 26, 2011. The Marines living in austere conditions at PB-302 exchange fire regularly with Taliban who attack from multiple directions. (AP Photo/Brennan Linsley)
Staff Sgt. Everett Bracey, 28, of Kennett, Mo., right, and Pfc. Michael Cagle, 20, of San Carlos, Texas, with the U.S. Army’s 25th Infantry Division, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Battalion 27th Infantry Regiment based in Schofield Barracks, Hawaii, taker cover during an indirect fire attack by insurgents Sept. 5, 2011 in the village of Asmar, Kunar province, Afghanistan. (AP Photo/David Goldman)...
Soldiers with the U.S. Army’s 25th Infantry Division, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Battalion 27th Infantry Regiment based in Schofield Barracks, Hawaii, moving towards cover across a riverbed during an indirect fire attack by insurgents Sept. 5, 2011 in the village of Asmar, Kunar province, Afghanistan. (AP Photo/David Goldman)...
IF YOU DON’T LIKE THE RESISTANCE END THE OCCUPATIONS
LIBYA WAR REPORTS
Venezuelan Politician Tells His BF Q To Fight To The Death:
Chavez Says To Q No Asylum Here For You:
“Win Or Die"
Sep 5, 2011 By Charlie Devereux, Bloomberg [Excerpts]
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez urged Muammar Qaddafi to resist a rebel siege in Libya, saying that his ally has no plans to leave the embattled North African nation. "Nobody knows where Qaddafi is," Chavez said today in a phone interview broadcast on state television. "I’m sure that he’s very far from thinking about leaving Libya. He’ll resist with what power he has left." Chavez, who last month pledged support to Qaddafi and called the armed conflict in Libya the result of "imperial insanity," said he doesn’t have information on the leader’s whereabouts. When asked if he would offer Qaddafi asylum, Chavez recalled a conversation he had with Cuba’s Fidel Castro about the capture of Saddam Hussein after Iraq was invaded. Chavez said Fidel told him that in such situations "what we have to do is win or die."
MILITARY NEWS
HOW MANY MORE FOR OBAMA’S WARS?
Sgt. Philip Anderson cradles his son Vincent Anderson, 2 months, during a deployment ceremony Sept. 11, 2011 for the 1086th Transportation Company at Guinn Auditorium, Louisiana College in Pineville, La. Based out of Bunkie, the 1086 is deploying to Afghanistan after two months of mobilization training at Fort Hood, Texas. (AP Photo/Melinda Martinez - The Town Talk)
2,800 From Fort Shafter Off To Obama’s Imperial Slaughterhouse:
25th CAB To Deploy To Afghanistan In January
Sep 8, 2011 Army Times The 25th Combat Aviation Brigade will deploy to Afghanistan in January, the Defense Department announced Thursday. The 2,800 soldiers from Fort Shafter, Hawaii, will deploy as part of the regular rotation of forces in Afghanistan, according to DoD. The announcement said the CAB is scheduled to deploy for one year, even though the Army is moving to nine-month deployments for most units beginning in January. “This unit is scheduled to deploy for up to 12 months, potentially,” said Paul Boyce, a spokesman for Forces Command. “It’s an aviation unit, which has historically been in high demand.” Soldiers from the 25th CAB likely will replace the 159th Combat Aviation Brigade of Fort Campbell, Ky., which has been deployed since February. The 25th CAB was last deployed from October 2009 to October 2010 in Iraq.
A Soldier’s Heroism During The Sept. 8, 2009 Ambush In Ganjgal Ignored By Command:
A Marine Who Fought By His Side And Is Getting The Medal Of Honor Says “It Is ‘Ridiculous’ That Swenson Hasn’t Yet Been Recognized For His Heroism”
“The Lack Of Recognition Raises Questions About Whether Swenson’s Angry Criticism Of Army Officers, Who Repeatedly Refused Fire Support That Day, Is The Reason He Hasn’t Been Decorated”
Army Capt. William Swenson calls for air support on his radio after Afghan security forces and their U.S. military trainers were ambushed Sept. 8, 2009. The force was on its way to Ganjgal. Photo: JONATHAN S. LANDAY/MCCLATCHY TRIBUNE NEWS SERVICE September 12, 2011 By Dan Lamothe, Army Times [Excerpts] In a rocky mountainside trench, a soldier and a Marine worked in tandem under an avalanche of enemy fire to retrieve the bodies of a four-man training team killed in eastern Afghanistan. Army Capt. William Swenson and Marine Cpl. Dakota Meyer already had braved enemy fire repeatedly during the Sept. 8, 2009, ambush in Ganjgal, an insurgent-held village in Kunar province’s Sarkani district. On a last, urgent dash into the village, Meyer charged through enemy fire to find the missing service members, and Swenson joined him in the chaos to load their bloody bodies and gear onto a Humvee and take them home. On Sept. 15, Meyer is expected to receive the Medal of Honor at a White House ceremony. Swenson, on the other hand, has received nothing. The lack of recognition raises questions about whether Swenson’s angry criticism of Army officers, who repeatedly refused fire support that day, is the reason he hasn’t been decorated.
It is “ridiculous” that Swenson hasn’t yet been recognized for his heroism, said Meyer. Swenson repeatedly braved fire in the battle, working alongside the Marines to engage enemy fighters and evacuate U.S. and Afghan casualties from a kill zone, the Medal of Honor nominee said. “I’ll put it this way,” Meyer said. “If it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t be alive today.” An Army source with knowledge of the awards process said Swenson is “up for some kind of valor award,” but he did not say whether it could be a Medal of Honor or Distinguished Service Cross, the second-highest valor award, or a lesser medal. By policy, the U.S. military does not typically discuss pending military awards, said Bill Costello, a spokesman with Army Human Resources Command, Fort Knox, Ky. Meyer, now a sergeant in the Individual Ready Reserve, and Swenson worked with other service members to save pinned-down forces after a group of 13 U.S. military trainers, 60 Afghan soldiers and 20 Afghan border police were caught in a devastating U-shaped ambush in the Ganjgal Valley, near the Pakistan border. Coalition forces engaged in a six-hour firefight in which fire support was repeatedly denied by Army officers at nearby Forward Operating Base Joyce. The officers — with Task Force Chosin, a unit comprising soldiers from 1st Battalion, 32nd Infantry Regi-ment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division, out of Fort Drum, N.Y. — were later cited following a military investigation for “negligent” leadership leading “directly to the loss of life” on the battlefield. Swenson — then a member of 1st Brigade, 1st Infantry Division, out of Fort Riley, Kan. — was deployed to oversee the training of Afghan border police in Sarkani. A Ranger School graduate with previous deployments to Afghanistan and Iraq, he had participated in the planning of the mission, and was assured fire support would be available. U.S. forces left Joyce early that morning to meet tribal leaders in Ganjgal, but the mission turned sour quickly. Insurgent fighters opened fire with small arms, rockets and rocket-propelled grenades shortly after dawn, Meyer said. The four-man team of Marine trainers in the front of the element was quickly pinned down. The team pleaded for fire support, a military investigation later found, but was denied because officers at Joyce’s tactical operations center underestimated how bad the ambush was and were concerned about killing civilians or U.S. service members with artillery rounds. After the Marine team stopped responding to their radio, other U.S. forces reported them missing and began a frantic search to find them. Swenson and other U.S. forces were farther from the village but faced a torrent of enemy fire. He began requesting fire support shortly after the shooting started,
but after a few early artillery shells arrived, he and other troops were denied additional rounds. Swenson and Fabayo defended the group from advancing Taliban fighters who were dressed in Afghan National Army uniforms and helmets, according to military documents. Swenson killed at least two or three of them with a grenade at close range. Fabayo and Swenson also worked together to evacuate more casualties under fire and cared for the wounded, including Sgt. 1st Class Kenneth Westbrook, Swenson’s top noncommissioned officer, who later died. Meyer found the Marine team members shot to death. Meyer and Swenson faced enemy gunfire to retrieve the bodies. Swenson “has received nothing at all,” Westbrook’s widow, Charlene, said. “I don’t understand how the Army isn’t awarding him something that he clearly, clearly deserved.” Interviewed for the investigation, Swenson unloaded on the rules of engagement used in Afghanistan, the leadership of officers who didn’t send help and the second-guessing he experienced while requesting fire support, according to military documents. “When I’m being second-guessed by higher or somebody that’s sitting in an airconditioned TOC, why (the) hell am I even out there in the first place?” Swenson told investigators. “… I am the ground commander … I want that f---er, and I am willing to accept the con-sequences of that f---er.” Swenson added that he had been second-guessed on previous occasions, and was frustrated by a complicated process to clear fires, even under duress. “I always get these crazy messages saying that, ‘Hey, brigade is saying that you can’t see the target,’ ” Swenson told investigators. “Brigade, you’re in Jalalabad. Fuck you, you know? I am staring at the target … Just people second guessing. “If I am willing to put my initials on it, I understand the importance of making sure the rounds hit where they are supposed to hit. I understand the consequences of civilian casualties.” Swenson could not be reached for comment. He left active-duty service in February, Costello said. He lives a private life in Washington state, and is still disenchanted with the Army, said Charlene Westbrook, who remains in contact with her late husband’s former commander. “He, in my opinion is real humble. He has not said anything one way or the other about being pissed or mad about it,” she said. But he is deserving, she added. “He’s just an awesome guy.”
“The Pay Gap Between Officers And Enlisted Is Ridiculous”
“How About They Reduce The Officers’ Pay And Benefits And See How That Will Help The Budget?”
Letters To The Editor Army Times September 12, 2011 I find it alarming that an officer and enlisted, when compared, their retirement benefits are so far apart. Why does an enlisted soldier receive $43,000 and an officer receives almost five times that amount, $211,000? The pay gap between officers and enlisted is ridiculous. When will Americans and Congress look at the pay scales and start closing the grand canyon of a gap? How about they reduce the officers’ pay and benefits and see how that will help the budget? Staff Sgt. Paul Martin Fort Riley, Kan.
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Forward Military Resistance along, or send us the address if you wish and we’ll send it regularly. Whether in Afghanistan, Iraq or stuck on a base in the USA, this is extra important for your service friend, too often cut off from access to encouraging news of growing resistance to the wars and economic injustice, inside the armed services and at home. Send email requests to address up top or write to: The Military Resistance, Box 126, 2576 Broadway, New York, N.Y. 10025-5657. Phone: 888.711.2550
War Profiteering Traitors At Work:
Sikorsky Aircraft Corp. “Overcharged The U.S. Army $2,393.41 For A Plastic Wiring Box Cover Worth $181.70”
“Sikorsky Charged The Army $11.8 Million, Or 51.4 Percent More Than Fair And Reasonable Prices”
Sep 8, 2011 By Tony Capaccio, Bloomberg [Excerpts] Sikorsky Aircraft Corp. overcharged the U.S. Army for 28 UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter spare parts, including $2,393.41 for a plastic wiring box cover worth $181.70, according to the office of the Defense Department’s Inspector General. Sikorsky, a unit of Hartford, Connecticut-based United Technologies Corp. (UTX), charged the Army $7,814.88 for a rotor used to cool radiator oil that cost another Pentagon agency $1,536.65, according to the 65-page audit. Bloomberg News obtained the report, a three-page summary of which the Inspector General made public today. The audit cited excessively priced parts and costs based on pricing data that wasn’t current, complete or accurate from the latest of three Sikorsky contracts with the Corpus Christi, Texas, Army depot. The contracts were valued cumulatively at about $1.1 billion. Overall “we calculated that Sikorsky charged the Army $11.8 million, or 51.4 percent more than fair and reasonable prices,” between 2008 and 2010, the audit said. About $158,531 of that excess was paid for the plastic wiring box covers. “If not corrected Army officials will pay excessive profits of approximately $16.6 million over the remaining two years of the contract,” including $249,986 in future wiring box overcharges, it said. Sikorsky also charged progressively increased prices for titanium sheath assemblies used to protect Black Hawk rotor blades -- the helicopter’s most expensive item, the audit said.
Sikorsky’s assembly prices increased 114.3 percent to $17,004.39 each in 2008 from $7,936.57 each in 2007. “Sikorsky made a 28.6 percent profit supplying the item in 2010 and the profit will increase annually by 4 percent through 2012 due to the contract clause escalation,” the audit said. Sikorsky has agreed to provide $1 million in refunds, including some for the wiring box covers. The Army Aviation and Missile Life Cycle Management Command, which manages the contracts, “needs to correct prices and seek” another $11 million in refunds, the audit said. The Army also must revise contract clauses to avoid another $21 million in “excessive costs” that would be triggered by escalation clauses, the audit said. The Army didn’t adequately analyze Sikorsky’s prices, the audit said. The command didn’t have “adequate procedures to ensure” Sikorsky’s costs were reasonable for use in negotiations, it said.
Florida Trash Vote Down VA Facility:
City Leaders Wednesday Called The Proposed Veterans’ Treatment Program “Incompatible” With Its Plan “For Bringing Retail Down To Our Main Street”
09.07.11 By Michael Vasquez, The Miami Herald The night began patriotically — with the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks only days away, the Oakland Park City Commission honored its fire and police officers. The night ended divisively — with Oakland Park city leaders rejecting a proposed Veterans Administration treatment program as incompatible with the city’s plan for a retail-focused, family-friendly downtown. “I fully support our first responders, our soldiers, our veterans,” said City Commissioner John Adornato, one of those to vote against the veteran’s center. But, he added, “this is not the place given our long-term vision for bringing retail down to our Main Street.” Oakland Park’s Main Street downtown area runs north from Oakland Park Boulevard near the intersection with Dixie Highway.
The city has invested millions of dollars in transforming its downtown into a pedestrianfriendly, visually-appealing thoroughfare, with new streetscapes and landscaping among the many improvements. However, more than half of the buildings on Main Street are vacant despite the city’s development effort, pointed out Bonnie Miskek, an attorney representing WSSA LLC, the developer behind the project. “We hate to say it, but the vision wasn’t good,’’ Miskek said after the commissioners voted against the project. The vote was 2-1, with two commissioners abstaining. A former women’s shelter on the boulevard was being eyed by the Veterans Administration as for a pilot program, one of only four in the nation. The others will be in Denver, San Diego and Philadelphia. Previously, Miskek had told the city’s Planning and Zoning Board that the experimental VA program is “designed to efficiently integrate the veterans back into the community, assisting them with the transition from typical military dependent living to self-sufficient independent living.” A maximum of 40 veterans would have enrolled in the three-month program to learn life skills through vocational and education programs. John Sabty of WSSA had repeatedly assured the city that “undesirables would not use the new facility.’’ “If they have severe mental problems or substance abuse issues, this won’t be the facility for them,” Sabty said. “The VA has other places for that.” Resident Jack Doren said veterans were being used as an emotional selling point for the developer who was trying to save money by not building somewhere where such facilities are already allowed. Supporters of the center countered that the Oakland Park site perfectly fit both the cost and layout design criteria laid out by the federal government. Veterans, along with some Oakland Park residents, pushed hard for the veteran’s center to be approved — calling it a much-needed program that would also spark investment in the city’s downtown.
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Comments, arguments, articles, and letters from service men and women, and veterans, are especially welcome. Write to Box 126, 2576 Broadway, New York, N.Y. 10025-5657 or email [email protected]: Name, I.D., withheld unless you request publication. Same address to unsubscribe.
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.” “The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppose.” Frederick Douglass, 1852
Hope for change doesn’t cut it when you’re still losing buddies. -- J.D. Englehart, Iraq Veterans Against The War
“The Democratic Base, To The Extent That It Votes, Will Vote For Obama In
2012, Seeing Him As The ‘Lesser Of Evils’"
“But He Is, In Fact, The ‘More Effective Evil,’ Having Done More Damage To Democratic Core Constituencies Than Any Republican Could Dream Of”
09/06/2011 By Glen Ford, Black Agenda Radio It has begun. Obama’s 2012 presidential campaign saw union workers in Detroit, a large proportion of them Black, spending their Labor Day chanting "Four More Years!" after four of the worst years in African American history, from an economic standpoint. Barack Obama has been a prime shaper of events for the last three of those years, since October 2008, when he singlehandedly saved George Bush’s bank bailout, after it had initially been defeated. Obama then assembled an economic team comprised of the same people that had set the stage for the meltdown, less than a decade before. He spent the first year of his presidency making health care safe for the drug racketeers and private insurers, through backroom deals that froze out members of Congress most friendly to Blacks and labor, the Democratic Party’s core constituencies. Within a year, the left wing of the Democratic Party was beaten down, demoralized and isolated at the hands of the First Black President. From then on, the parameters of the national political conversation were confined to a narrow spectrum, that went from Obama, the corporate, center-right Democrat, to the Tea Party, the corporate-financed white nationalists. Nothing favorable to Blacks or labor could possibly emerge from such a toxic political mix. But it was a mix of Obama’s making. This was Obama-Brew, and he was the bartender through two years when the Democrats, with a congressional majority, were encouraged by their president to behave as if the Republicans were in charge. In 2010, the Republicans did take charge in the House, and it was as if they had seized the entire government. In the second year, he dropped even the pretense that jobs were a top priority.
There was no push for a national jobs program in Obama’s first year, despite good chances for passage, because Obama did not want one. Labor’s most sought-after legislation, the card-check bill that might reverse the steady decline in union membership, got nowhere in the Democratic Congress, because Obama did not support it. Then, in the second year, he dropped even the pretense that jobs were a top priority, and began shouting like a Republican banshee about deficits and the need for "austerity." Blacks saw their futures flushed down the toilet while Obama dismissed them with nonsense about fictitious rising tides. Latinos, whose growing numbers are shaping America’s future, watched while the Democrat that two-thirds of them voted for deported more immigrants than his Republican predecessor. Who has Obama NOT betrayed, in the traditional Democratic base? The environmentalists got their education in Obamaism last week, when the president made the executive decision to stick with George Bush’s pollution standards, to great applause from big business. For those who were looking for a president who would stand up to Wall Street and the Pentagon, Obama has been a dismal failure. But for those on the Right whose mission in life is to utterly smash the power of Blacks and unions, Obama has been a godsend. The Democratic base, to the extent that it votes, will vote for Obama in 2012, seeing him as the "lesser of evils." But he is, in fact, the "more effective evil," having done more damage to Democratic core constituencies than any Republican could dream of.
Rumsfeld Says Obama Has Accepted Bush Regime Policies On Patriot Act, Guantanamo, “Cooperating Against Terrorism” And On And On And On
07 September 11 By Tim Mak, Politico [Excerpts] Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld says President Barack Obama has come to accept much of the Bush Doctrine out of necessity, despite what he campaigned on in 2008.
Rumsfeld said that Obama needed to keep the Guantanamo Bay detention center open because of national security concerns, and it was the best solution among a host of bad options. "They ended up keeping Guantanamo open not because they like it - we didn’t like it either - but they couldn’t think of a better solution," Rumsfeld told Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren on Tuesday. Rumsfeld then listed a handful of other Bush administration policies that have continued into the Obama administration, something that he sees as vindication of the policies. "The same is true with the Patriot Act, and military commissions, and indefinite detention. All of those things were criticized but today are still in place two-and-a-half years later because they are the best alternative to the other choices - and they are in fact successful in keeping America safer," he says. President Obama had campaigned against many of the major programs of President Bush’s war on terror, but often his national security policy has mirrored that of his predecessor. "I think what they did was they campaigned again the Bush approach - and once they got in they realized the 90-nation coalition that was put together was successful in sharing intelligence, and tracking bank accounts, and cooperating against terrorism," said Rumsfeld.
1968:
FBI Urges Using Vegetarians To Split War Resisters League:
“One Of The Most Idiotic Notions To Seep Out Of The FBI”
From: David McReynolds Subject: Too funny not to pass along: FBI urges using vegetarians to split WRL Date: Sep 7, 2011 Tonight, in one of those absolutely endless "sortings" that happen to those of us who pass 80 and are trying to see what can be tossed, I found a printout obtained under the FOIA of one part of my FBI file which I’d never noticed before. This was dated 10/14/68 and it seems to have been in the CHAOS file. I hadn’t noticed it before tonight - easy with hundreds of pages of the past floating around your apt. I quote - and this is very brief - nine lines . . .
******************************************** “Regarding Director’s orders via memorandum #CDP-WRL@McRzv major disruption of the War Resisters League can be accomplished by collaborators (XXXXXXX) and (XXXXXXX) who can capitalize on the fact that David McReynolds is reportedly of violent opposition to vegetarian foods and lifestyle. “There has been a lot of consternation within the inner circles of the organization with respect to this. Collaborators can instigate disruptions at upcoming meetings of League and render the League inoperable.” It is true I am not a vegetarian (and lifestyle?) but this strikes me as one of the most idiotic notions to seep out of the FBI. I’ll also pass this on to friends in NYC who will enjoy it - including Ed Hedemann and Ruth Benn, ardent vegetarians.
DANGER: POLITICIANS AT WORK
“The single largest failure of the anti-war movement at this point is the lack of outreach to the troops.” Tim Goodrich, Iraq Veterans Against The War
CLASS WAR REPORTS
Stupid Racists Of The New York City Police Department Get Caught In One More Example Of The Stupid Racism Of The New York City Police Department:
A Case Of Continued Black-And-White Police Intolerance
Council Member Jumaane Williams and Kirsten John Foy, Director of Community Relations for Public Advocate Bill de Blasio discuss their arrest after the West Indian Day Parade Tuesday. Photo: Bryan Smith for News September 7th 2011 By Juan Gonzalez, New York Daily News It is the kind of humiliating incident with police every African American or Latino man in this city fears. The kind Jumaane Williams, 35, thought he had left behind. The son of a doctor from Grenada, Williams, 35, was elected to the City Council from Central Brooklyn in 2009. He is well-educated, articulate and a rising star among black politicians.
Late Monday, at the end of the West Indian Day Parade, Williams became another young, black man roughed up and handcuffed by cops for the flimsiest of reasons. What happened to him and his boyhood friend Kirsten John Foy, 35, a top aide to Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, has become so appallingly routine in this town it rarely makes news anymore. The two were walking through a police "frozen zone" to get to a postparade event at the Brooklyn Museum. They say police supervisors at two previous checkpoints gave them the go-ahead to enter the zone, but cops at a third checkpoint refused to let them proceed. "We showed them our IDs but they didn’t want to hear of it, or even look at them," Foy said. Williams happens to be a tall man who wears his hair in dreadlocks. A community organizer and former student of mine at Brooklyn College, he is well-versed in conflict resolution. One of the lecturers I would invite to my class was a young police lieutenant named Eric Adams. Adams, now state senator, always explained how to act in a street encounter with police. On Monday, Williams pulled out his cell phone and called a police chief he knew who could confirm his identity for the police officers at the parade. He was on the phone with the chief when a group of cops surrounded him and started to push him out of the zone. The next thing he knew, he was in cuffs. His buddy Foy is hardly a novice at dealing with the police. Before he worked for de Blasio, Foy was one of Al Sharpton’s closest aides, and on the Sean Bell case. An amateur video shows Foy backing up as a cop moves toward him. The cop grabs Foy in a headlock, trips him to the ground and handcuffs him. De Blasio rushed back to the scene after his aide was arrested. De Blasio, who is white, told me he had no problem crossing numerous checkpoints by merely showing his ID. This is not the only incident involving police overreaction to black leaders at the parade.
Last year, Daniel Goodine, 54, an aide to City Councilwoman Letitia James, was arrested at the same spot. Goodine was trying to escort Latrice Walker, a lawyer who was feeling sick, from the parade route to a rest room at the museum. They were stopped by a policeman at a barricade. Goodine tried to insist the woman needed help. He ended up arrested for disorderly conduct and resisting arrest. Walker represented him at his trial, where he was acquitted. The most obvious sign that our city has a widespread problem is the number of stopand-frisk incidents recorded by police. Each year, they keep skyrocketing. For the first six months of 2011, there were 362,150 stops. That’s about 2,000 every day; 84% of them involved blacks and Hispanics. It took the arrest of a City Councilman to remind us that black and Latino men deserve more respect from police on our streets.
GOT AN OPINION?
Comments from service men and women, and veterans, are especially welcome. Write to Box 126, 2576 Broadway, New York, N.Y. 10025-5657 or send to [email protected]: Name, I.D., withheld unless you request identification published.
No Problem For Pyramid Builders
Protesters tear down a concrete wall built in front of the Israeli embassy in Cairo September 9, 2011. REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh
Protesters celebrate as a concrete wall built around a building housing the Israeli embassy comes down in Cairo September 9, 2011. REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh
An Egyptian protester holds documents from the Israeli embassy after it was attacked in Cairo September 10, 2011. Hundreds of Egyptians stormed the building housing Israel’s mission in Cairo and threw embassy documents and its national flag from windows. REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh
A protester holds the Egyptian national flag as a fire rages outside the building housing the Israeli embassy in Cairo, Egypt, Sept. 9, 2011. [Photo credit unknown]
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