GI Special:
thomasfbarton@earthlink.net
9.22.07
Print it out: color best. Pass it on.
GI SPECIAL 5I21:
[Thanks to Mark Shapiro, who sent this in.]
Kiss The Bankrupt
Empire Goodbye:
Fears Of Dollar Collapse Grow
As Saudis Take Fright
20/09/2007 By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, International Business Editor; Financial Times
Saudi Arabia has refused to cut interest rates in lockstep with the US Federal Reserve
for the first time, signalling that the oil-rich Gulf kingdom is preparing to break the dollar
currency peg in a move that risks setting off a stampede out of the dollar across the
Middle East.
“This is a very dangerous situation for the dollar,” said Hans Redeker, currency chief at
BNP Paribas.
“Saudi Arabia has $800bn in their future generation fund, and the entire region has
$3,500bn under management. They face an inflationary threat and do not want to import
an interest rate policy set for the recessionary conditions in the United States,” he said.
The Saudi central bank said today that it would take “appropriate measures” to halt huge
capital inflows into the country, but analysts say this policy is unsustainable and will
inevitably lead to the collapse of the dollar peg.
As a close ally of the US, Riyadh has so far tried to stick to the peg, but the link is now
destabilising its own economy.
The Fed’s dramatic half point cut to 4.75% yesterday has already caused a plunge
in the world dollar index to a fifteen year low, touching with weakest level ever
against the mighty euro at just under $1.40.
There is now a growing danger that global investors will start to shun the US bond
markets.
The latest US government data on foreign holdings released this week show a
collapse in purchases of US bonds from $97bn to just $19bn in July, with outright
net sales of US Treasuries.
The danger is that this could now accelerate as the yield gap between the United States
and the rest of the world narrows rapidly, leaving America starved of foreign capital flows
needed to cover its current account deficit - expected to reach $850bn this year, or 6.5%
of GDP.
Mr Redeker said foreign investors have been gradually pulling out of the longterm US debt markets, leaving the dollar dependent on short-term funding.
Foreigners have funded 25% to 30% of America’s credit and short-term paper markets
over the last two years.
“They were willing to provide the money when rates were paying nicely, but why bear the
risk in these dramatically changed circumstances? We think that a fall in dollar to $1.50
against the euro is not out of the question at all by the first quarter of 2008,” he said.
“This is nothing like the situation in 1998 when the crisis was in Asia, but the US was
booming. This time the US itself is the problem,” he said.
Mr Redeker said the biggest danger for the dollar is that falling US rates will at some
point trigger a reversal yen “carry trade”, causing massive flows from the US back to
Japan.
Jim Rogers, the commodity king and former partner of George Soros, said the Federal
Reserve was playing with fire by cutting rates so aggressively at a time when the dollar
was already under pressure.
The risk is that flight from US bonds could push up the long-term yields that form the
base price of credit for most mortgages, the driving the property market into even deeper
crisis.
“If Ben Bernanke starts running those printing presses even faster than he’s already
doing, we are going to have a serious recession. The dollar’s going to collapse, the bond
market’s going to collapse. There’s going to be a lot of problems,” he said.
The Federal Reserve, however, clearly calculates the risk of a sudden downturn is now
so great that it outweighs dangers of a dollar slide.
Former Fed chief Alan Greenspan said this week that house prices may fall by “double
digits” as the subprime crisis bites harder, prompting households to cut back sharply on
spending.
For Saudi Arabia, the dollar peg has clearly become a liability. Inflation has risen to 4%
and the M3 broad money supply is surging at 22%.
The pressures are even worse in other parts of the Gulf. The United Arab Emirates now
faces inflation of 9.3%, a 20-year high. In Qatar it has reached 13%.
Kuwait became the first of the oil sheikhdoms to break its dollar peg in May, a move that
has begun to rein in rampant money supply growth.
Fed chief Ben Bernanke
IRAQ WAR REPORTS
New York Soldier Killed In Baghdad
U.S. Army Spc. Jonathan Rivadeneira, of Jackson Heights, N.Y., 22, died on Sept. 14,
2007, in Baghdad, after an improvised explosive device detonated near his vehicle.
Rivadeneira was assigned to the 6th Squadron, 9th U.S. Cavalry, 3rd Brigade Combat
Team, 1st Cavalry Division at Fort Hood in Texas. (AP Photo/Illinois Lt. Gov. Pat
Quinn’s Office)
U.S. Soldier Killed In Diyala, Another
Wounded
09-21-2007 Multi National Corps Iraq Public Affairs Office, Camp Victory RELEASE No.
20070921-04
TIKRIT, Iraq – A Task Force Lightning Soldier was killed in Diyala Province Thursday
when an explosion occurred near his vehicle.
Another Soldier was wounded and transported to a Coalition medical facility for
treatment.
One Romanian Soldier Killed, Five
Wounded Near Tallil
Sept. 21 (Xinhua)
One Romanian soldier was killed and five others were wounded early on Friday in Iraq,
the Defense Ministry of Romania said.
Defense Minister Teodor Melescanu said the Romanian soldier was killed by the
explosion of a makeshift device when he was on a patrol mission outside the Tallil
military base. Another five Romanian troops were wounded in the blast when traveling in
an armored personnel carrier.
Soldier Dies In “Non-Combat Related”
Incident
09-21-2007 Multi National Corps Iraq Public Affairs Office, Camp Victory RELEASE No.
20070921-05
TIKRIT, Iraq – A Soldier assigned to Task Force Lightning died in a non-combat related
incident in Kirkuk province Sept. 20.
Falls County Fallen Hero
September 21, 2007 By Christine Kern, Staff Writer, The Marlin Democrat
On September 5, Corporal William “Billy” T. Warford III, 24, of Lott was killed supporting
Operation Iraqi Freedom in Balad, Iraq.
He was assigned to the 215th Brigade Support Battalion, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 1st
Cavalry Division, out of Fort Hood. His family misses him, but say that Warford would
want them to take comfort in knowing that he was fighting for a cause, his country and
his family. “He did it so we didn’t have to,” Crystal Bethke, his sister, said. “It was just
his time.”
Letters from some of the men Warford fought with reveal that he was loved and revered
by all.
His wish for them was to go on and remember to continue fighting, he will be there by
their side. His family retell stories about the last time he was home for leave, about how
he loved watching the kids in Iraq and handing them candy.
Warford was a tank mechanic, but changed military occupations after being asked to join
on patrols with the unit.
Warford leaves his wife, Shea Warford, and two children, Abbey Warford, 6 and Anthony
Warford, 2, along with his mother, Jere Beal and father William Warford II and his sister,
Crystal and husband Michael Bethke.
Those he left behind know he is still riding along side his brothers in Iraq, looking out for
them until they too can come home.
ENOUGH OF THIS SHIT;
COME HOME NOW
Weary US “surge” troops from 1-30 Infantry Battalion return to their patrol base following
a search for illegal weapons along the Tigris river, south of Baghdad, 02 September
2007. (AFP/File/David Furst)
AFGHANISTAN WAR REPORTS
French Soldier Dies In Attack In Kabul
September 21, 2007 Sayed Salahuddin, Reuters
A car bomber targeted a convoy carrying NATO troops on Friday in the Afghan capital,
killing one French soldier of the alliance and wounding several Afghan civilians, police
said.
A Taliban spokesman said the attack was carried out by a member of the group which is
fighting to oust the Afghan government and drive out foreign troops from Afghanistan.
DV Grad: ‘A True Soldier, Warrior
And Infantryman’
Pfc. Mykel Miller: Photo illustration by Emily Behrendt
September 14, 2007 By Doug Murphy, Ahwatukee Foothills News
During a security patrol in Afghanistan, Mykel Miller, a 2006 graduate of Desert Vista
High School, brought an Etch-A-Sketch to a rural school to entertain students by drawing
pictures. “He was mobbed by Afghan children,” wrote Sgt. 1st Class Steven Bowers of
Coolidge, Miller’s platoon sergeant in Afghanistan. “It was like magic to them. They
seemed more amazed by its ability to erase by shaking it than anything, and Miller
relished showing it to Afghan children,” said Bowers, the younger brother of former
Arizona State Sen. Rusty Bowers.
Miller, 19, a private first class, was killed instantly Sept. 6 in Zabul Province when his
Humvee rolled over an improvised explosive device. Also wounded in the same attack
was the Humvee gunner, PFC Joseph Gracia of Phoenix.
Both were in the Arizona National Guard’s 1st Battalion 158th Infantry, which has been
in Afghanistan since March.
A nearby Romanian unit responded to the attack on the Arizona Guardsmen and
Sergeant Major Aurel Marcu, 31, died when the armored personnel carrier he was riding
also ran over an IED while rushing to help. Two other Romanian soldiers were also
injured in that attack.
Miller is the second local high school graduate to die in the war on terrorism. In 2005
Marine Lance Corporal Christopher Poston, 20, a 2003 graduate of Mountain Pointe
High School, died in Hit, Iraq, in a vehicle accident.
At Desert Vista, the staff remembered Miller’s sense humor and big smile.
“That’s the thing I’ll never forget, the smile that had,” said Shawna Thue, now a Spanish
Teacher at Desert Vista, who called Miller “full of life.”
Miller joined the Arizona National Guard after graduation and was called into active duty
in January with the rest of the battalion. They trained at Ft. Benning, GA, before shipping
out to Afghanistan.
Miller was the youngest solider in 2nd Lt. Brett Yeater’s platoon, but Yeater said he
could see the Ahwatukee Foothills teenager growing into a man during the training and
deployment in Afghanistan.
“He was admired and respected by all of the soldiers in the platoon. He was a true
soldier, warrior, and Infantryman,” wrote Yeater from Afghanistan.
But he was also an active teenager.
“Mykel was a cocky, good-humored young man. Always quick with a comeback,” wrote
his platoon sergeant, Bowers.
And, on occasion, he would entertain the rest of the platoon during the long stretches of
boredom that are part of the life of an infantryman.
“Miller would frequently play music for the rest of us, and the entire platoon would
chuckle when he would jump upon the hood of the Humvees and begin dancing,” said
Yeater, who is from Tucson.
Bowers wrote that Miller would talk endlessly about motorcycles and tease his squad
leader, Phoenix Police Officer Marcell Cox, that when he got back to Phoenix he would
speed by Cox and see if he could catch him.
The 600 citizen-soldiers in the battalion are the largest overseas deployment of Arizona
National Guardsmen since World War II. They come from Ahwatukee Foothills,
Phoenix, the East Valley, Tucson and other parts of Arizona.
Also in Afghanistan is the Arizona National Guard’s 1st Battalion of the 258th Aviation
Regiment, flying Apache helicopters. That unit is also made up of 500 men and women
from Phoenix, Tucson and rural communities in Arizona.
A wake for Mykel Miller is scheduled on Monday from 6 to 8:30 p.m. at Corpus Christi
Catholic Church, 3550 E. Knox Road. The funeral mass is set for 9:30 a.m. Tuesday,
Sept. 18 at Corpus Christi.
A vehicle procession will leave Corpus Christi at 2 p.m. for the graveside services and
internment at the National Cemetery, 23029 N. Cave Creek Road, in north Phoenix.
The family has asked that in lieu of flowers, mourners donate to the Pfc. Mykel Miller
Memorial Fund at the Parish of Saint Benedict, 16223 S. 48th St., Phoenix, 85048.
TROOP NEWS
THIS IS HOW BUSH BRINGS THE TROOPS HOME:
BRING THEM ALL HOME NOW, ALIVE
The casket of Army Cpl. Jason Hernandez, Streetsboro, Ohio, Sept. 17, 2007.
Hernandez was killed by a roadside bomb on Sept. 7, his 21st birthday, while serving in
Mosul, Iraq. (AP Photo/Amy Sancetta)
Double Betrayal:
1. The Traitor Gates Moves To Stop
More Dwell Time For Combat Troops
September 20, 2007 BuzzFlash.com
When it comes to the cynical and phony mantra of the GOP to “support our troops,” you
would think the Pentagon would be Ground Zero for taking care of our GIs. Apparently
not.
Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates took to the airwaves to denounce legislation to
ensure that our soldiers receive appropriate training, rest, and rotation. On a Sunday
talk show, Gates said “he would recommend a veto of a Senate proposal that would give
troops more rest between deployments in Iraq, branding it a dangerous ‘backdoor way’
to draw down forces.”
Talk about betraying our troops; this is what it looks like.
MORE:
2. The Democrat Traitors Who Run
The Senate Kill The Proposal
Rather Than Debate It
September 19, 2007 Associated Press
The Senate blocked legislation today that would have regulated the amount of time
troops spent in combat.
The 56-44 vote was four votes short of reaching the 60 needed to cut off debate.
The legislation would have required that troops spend as much time at home
training with their units as they spend deployed in Iraq or Afghanistan.
MORE:
The Troops And Their Families
Pay The Terrible Price Of Endless
Deployments:
“In Vietnam, The Standard Tour Of
Duty Was 12 Months”
“He Won’t Go. We’ve Already Decided
As A Couple. We Will Not Do This
Again”
“One month (extension) stretched into two, two months stretched into three,”
Kelly recalled. “… The unknowing, the guessing, that makes you crazy. It makes
the soldiers crazy.”
In Vietnam, the standard tour of duty was 12 months. If a soldier was to be
redeployed to the combat zone, Army policy mandated a 24-month period of
recuperation or retraining between tours, said Larry Korb, a senior fellow at the
Center for American Progress, a Washington think tank.
[Thanks to Elaine Brower, The Military Project, who sent this in.]
Sept 19, 2007 By Kari Huus, Reporter; MSNBC [Excerpts]
MIDLAND, N.C. - While generals and politicians debate strategy and funding for the Iraq
war on Capitol Hill, the cost of the conflict is tallied in places like this quiet subdivision,
where Kelly Bridson each night listens to her 10-year-old son’s bedtime prayers for his
stepfather’s safety: “The light of God surrounds you. The love of God enfolds you. The
power of God protects you. …”
Army Spc. Joe Bridson is stationed in the volatile city of Samarra, Iraq, about 80 miles
north of Baghdad.
The prayers could well be goodnight hugs if not for the vagaries of military service in the
era of the volunteer army:
Joe Bridson is now in the 14th month of what originally was to have been a fourto six-month deployment in Iraq.
Bridson’s situation is hardly unique.
Scores of readers of msnbc.com’s Gut Check America project wrote of loved ones
in similar situations, either repeatedly deployed to the combat zone or languishing
there months after their deployments were to have ended.
Repeated deployments of active military members and reservists and diminishing “dwell
times” between postings to the war zone have taxed soldiers and taken a growing toll on
the home front.
“Families are truly exhausted,” says Patricia Barron, who runs youth programs for the
National Military Families Association. “They are starting to feel the stresses of
separation more acutely.”
******************************
Kelly waits anxiously for each phone call from her husband. They come almost daily and
trigger fears of the worst kind when they don’t. That often means that someone in his
company has been injured or killed and the military has cut off phone access until the
next of kin has been notified. That’s when Kelly starts looking out the window, fearing the
worst.
“There have been times when we’ve gone seven, eight days,” says Kelly. “After 48
hours, you know it’s not yours. … And I know it sounds terrible, but then you think,
‘Thank God it’s not mine.’”
When the phone finally rings, Kelly sinks into the crimson-and-rust cushions of her sofa
and listens as Joe describes his days on patrol.
While it is a relief to hear his voice, their conversations raise other concerns. Joe’s
moods are unpredictable, ranging from tenderness to rage.
“I never know who I’m going to get on the phone,” Kelly said. “He’s really been in the
thick of it. … He worries that he won’t be the same person when he gets back.”
The couple had been together about six months when Joe learned he would be
deployed to Iraq in August 2006 with the rest of the 3rd Brigade of the 82nd Airborne
Division, based at Fort Bragg, N.C., as a machine-gunner for his squad in Charlie
Company.
It was a blow, though not entirely unexpected. And the separation seemed manageable.
Kelly had spent years as a single mom and built a successful career as an insurance
agent.
They decided to get married when Joe was on a short leave in December, even though
his deployment was coming to an end — or so they thought. Young Chase, Kelly’s son
from a previous marriage, was a beaming best man in the ceremony.
“We knew it would be tough,” Kelly said.
But extensions of his unit’s tour of duty and the uncertainty of how long he would be in
Iraq made it worse.
“One month (extension) stretched into two, two months stretched into three,”
Kelly recalled. “… The unknowing, the guessing, that makes you crazy. It makes
the soldiers crazy.”
Eleven members of Charlie Company have been killed and 40, including Joe, have been
awarded Purple Hearts for battle wounds.
He was shot in the forearm last month but was back out on patrol three days later. Kelly
says he’s also suffered two concussions — one from an IED and another from a
grenade blast.
Still, what may have been the worst moment of the war for Joe and Kelly came in
April, when Secretary of Defense Robert Gates announced that U.S. Army tours
would be extended from 12 months to 15.
Joe heard the news not from his commander, but by phone from Kelly. She said
he couldn’t believe it would include his company.
“His exact words were: ‘It better not be us. I will fucking lose it,’” recalled Kelly.
“And I thought, ‘Oh my God, is something in his brain going to snap?’”
Joe’s time in a combat zone already is longer than most soldiers in Vietnam served.
In order to sustain troop levels in what has become a much more prolonged conflict than
originally anticipated, the military has relied on repeated deployments, and a far heavier
use of “weekend warriors.”
More than 434,000 National Guard and Reserve members have been deployed to Iraq
or Afghanistan, about one-quarter of them more than once, according to the Pentagon.
In comparison, about 340,000 Guard and Reserve troops were deployed during the
Vietnam conflict.
Extended tours of duty in the combat zone — some as long as 18 months — also
are a departure from the past.
In Vietnam, the standard tour of duty was 12 months.
If a soldier was to be redeployed to the combat zone, Army policy mandated a 24month period of recuperation or retraining between tours, said Larry Korb, a
senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, a Washington think tank.
“The task of sustaining or increasing troop levels in Iraq has forced the Army to
frequently violate its own deployment policy,” Korb, a former assistant secretary of
defense and now a harsh critic of the Bush administration’s conduct of the war, told a
congressional hearing on July 27.
That has meant sending soldiers and reservists to combat zones two, three and even
four times, and “short-cycling” units back into combat with as little as nine months
between deployments, he said.
Joe is slated to complete his military service in January 2009.
In theory, he could be redeployed to Iraq a second time if the conflict continues as
it is.
A stop-loss policy now in effect also prevents troops from leaving the battle until
the end of a deployment, even if their military commitment should be ending.
But Kelly is adamant that it will not happen, though she isn’t sure what can be
done to avoid it.
“He won’t go. We’ve already decided as a couple. We will not do this again,” she
said. “We can’t.”
MORE:
“She Holds Mr. Bush Responsible
For Her Son’s Death”
His Tour Was Extended As Part Of
The President’s Troop “Surge”
“Alcántara’s Iraq Duty Was Supposed To
Have Ended On June 28, A Day Before
His Daughter Was Born”
Cpl. Juan M. Alcántara
September 18, 2007 By CLYDE HABERMAN, New York Times [Excerpts]
On an August day when some Iraqi’s homemade bomb tore through him, Cpl. Juan
Mariel Alcántara became an American. He never got to appreciate the honor.
Over all, about 21,000 noncitizens are serving in this country’s armed forces, the
Defense Department says.
Until death claimed him on Aug. 6, one of them was Corporal Alcántara of the United
States Army.
He did not live long enough to acquire a richly textured biography. He was born in the
Dominican Republic, reared in Washington Heights. He was 22 when the bomb — an
improvised explosive device, in military-speak — ended his life and the lives of three
fellow soldiers from the Second Infantry Division while they searched a house in
Baquba, north of Baghdad.
The Americanization of Juan Alcántara came at his family’s request.
Officially, the corporal was declared an American from the day he died.
There was a formal ceremony yesterday in the colonnaded Great Hall of City College of
New York. Corporal Alcántara’s relatives accepted his certificate of posthumous
citizenship.
Throughout, the Alcántara family sat disconsolately. They applauded with the others
and recited the Pledge of Allegiance and waved their little flags. But their hearts were
elsewhere.
Maria Alcántara, the soldier’s mother, is clearly a woman of stricken soul.
She holds Mr. Bush responsible for her son’s death.
Corporal Alcántara’s Iraq duty was supposed to have ended on June 28, a day
before his daughter was born. But his tour was extended as part of the
president’s troop “surge.”
“If my son had been allowed to return, he would be alive,” Ms. Alcántara said in
Spanish, “and he” — meaning the president — “is guilty.”
“My happiness, my everything, is gone,” she said.
The mother, who is not an American citizen, also spoke of being grateful for her son’s
naturalization. Still, gratitude does not bring peace of mind, said one of her daughters,
Fredelinda Peña. “It’s not a happy moment,” Ms. Peña said.
Unlike others on this day of celebration, the family wiped away tears.
When the president’s image appeared on the screen, Ms. Alcántara kept her head
down. She could not bring herself to look at the man who she felt was the reason
her son did not come home.
Maria Alcántara, center, and her daughter Fredelinda Peña, in striped sweater, took the
citizenship oath on Monday for Ms. Alcántara’s son, Cpl. Juan Alcántara, who died in
Iraq. Ozier Muhammad/The New York Times
Troops Invited:
What do you think? 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 email
contact@militaryproject.org:. Name, I.D., withheld unless you
request publication. Replies confidential. Same address to
unsubscribe.
OCCUPATION REPORT
A HAPPY IRAQI WELCOMES A CHANCE TO
THANK U.S. OCCUPATION SOLDIERS AND
PRESIDENT GEORGE W BUSH FOR
BRINGING PEACE, SECURITY, AND
PROSPERITY TO HIS NATION AND HIS
HOSPITAL
A U.S. soldier searches inside a hospital during a patrol southeast of Baghdad
September 17, 2007. REUTERS/Carlos Barria
OCCUPATION ISN’T LIBERATION
BRING ALL THE TROOPS HOME NOW!
Wounded Man Describes Mass
Murder By Blackwater Cowards;
“They Are Criminals And Thirst For
Blood”
Hassan Jaber, 37, shot by Blackwater killers, in a hospital in Baghdad, Sept. 20, 2007.
(AP Photo/ Khalid Mohammed)
[Thanks to Pham Binh, Military Project & Traveling Soldier, who sent this in.
September 20, 2007 By BUSHRA JUHI, Associated Press
BAGHDAD — Lawyer Hassan Jabir was stuck in traffic when he heard Blackwater
USA security contractors shout “Go, Go, Go.” Moments later bullets pierced his
back, he said Thursday from his hospital bed.
Jabir was among about a dozen people wounded Sunday during the shooting in west
Baghdad’s Mansour neighborhood. Iraqi police say at least 11 people were killed.
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki described the shooting as a “crime” by Blackwater, a N.C.based company that guards American diplomats and civilian officials in Iraq.
“No one fired at them,” Jabir said of the Blackwater guards. “No one attacked
them but they randomly fired at people. So many people died in the street.”
As Jabir posed for photographers in Yarmouk Hospital, an Interior Ministry official came
by to register his name as a victim in connection with the investigation.
Jabir, whose left arm and chest were bandaged, said he was driving toward the Ministry
of Justice when he found the road clogged with traffic. He saw several armored vehicles
with armed guards on the roofs parked ahead of the traffic jam. Three black SUVs were
behind them.
“After 20 minutes, the Americans told us to turn back,” he said. “They shouted
‘Go’ ‘Go’ ‘Go.’... When we started turning back, the Americans began shooting
heavily at us. The traffic policeman was the first person killed.”
The shooting set off a panic, Jabir said, with men, women and children diving
from their vehicles, trying desperately to crawl to safety.
“But many of them were killed,” he said. “I saw a 10-year-old boy jump in fear
from one of the minibuses. He was shot in his head. His mother jumped after him
and was also killed.”
Suddenly, Jabir felt two bullets strike his back — one pierced his left lung and the other
lodged in his intestines.
“I kept on driving my car because if I left it, I would die,” he said. “Then I was hit with two
other bullets, one in my right hand and the second in my right shoulder just under the
neck. ... I was rescued by Iraqi special forces” who rushed to the area.
“I swear to God that they were not exposed to any fire,” Jabir said of the
Blackwater guards.
“They are criminals and thirst for blood.”
U.S. officials have refused to discuss details of the shooting pending completion of the
investigation.
President Bush told reporters in Washington that he expects to discuss the incident with
al-Maliki during a meeting in New York next week on the sidelines of the U.N. General
Assembly session.
“Our problem is rooted in the occupation, regardless of whether it’s by security
firms or foreign troops,” a Baghdad resident, who have his name only as Abu
Ahmed, told Associated Press Television News.
“This is one of the grave consequences of the occupation.”
MORE:
Report Says Blackwater Mercenaries
Fired First
But among the rank and file of security contractors, Blackwater guards are
regularly ridiculed as cowboys who are relentlessly and pointlessly aggressive,
carry excessive weaponry and do not appear to have top-of-the-line training.
Passing Blackwater convoys sometimes intimidates even Westerners, who fear
coming under attack if they make a wrong move.
September 19, 2007 By SABRINA TAVERNISE and JAMES GLANZ, New York Times
[Excerpts]
A preliminary Iraqi report on a shooting involving an American diplomatic motorcade said
Tuesday that Blackwater security guards were not ambushed, as the company reported,
but instead fired at a car when it did not heed a policeman’s call to stop, killing a couple
and their infant.
The report said Blackwater helicopters had also fired.
“There was not shooting against the convoy,” said Ali al-Dabbagh, the Iraqi
government’s spokesman.
American Embassy officials had said Monday that the Blackwater guards had
been responding to a car bomb, but Mr. Dabbagh said the bomb was so far away
that it could not possibly have been a reason for the convoy to begin shooting.
“There was no fire from anyone in the square.” Instead, he said, the convoy had initiated
the shooting when a car did not heed a police officer and moved into an intersection.
“The traffic policeman was trying to open the road for them,” he said. “It was a crowded
square. But one small car did not stop. It was moving very slowly. They shot against
the couple and their child. They started shooting randomly.”
In video shot shortly after the episode, the child appeared to have burned to the mother’s
body after the car caught fire, according to an official who saw it.
In interviews on Tuesday, six Iraqis who had been in the area at the time of the shooting,
including a man who was wounded and an Iraqi Army soldier who helped rescue people,
offered roughly similar versions.
The Iraqi soldier, who said he was standing at a checkpoint on the edge of the square,
said he thought the convoy believed the small car was a suicide bomber and opened
fire.
The Iraqi soldier, who did not give his name but said he was from a company of
Iraqi commandos, said he saw another soldier trying to motion to the convoy to
move on, but he was shot as well.
“They are more powerful than the government,” the Iraqi soldier said. “No one
can try them. Where is the government in this?”
For Safaa Rabee, an engineer in Newcastle, England, whose 75-year-old father was
shot dead while driving home from grocery shopping on Aug. 13 in Hilla in southern Iraq,
the immunity was particularly galling.
Mr. Rabee said his father had pulled over and waited as a convoy of sport utility vehicles
zoomed past, lights and sirens flashing, a familiar routine for Iraqis, but when he pulled
back out, guards in the last car of the convoy opened fire.
Mr. Rabee and his brother discussed it with the Hilla police chief, who said the convoy
was an American diplomatic one from Najaf, another southern city, and also with a
sympathetic American colonel, who offered small financial compensation.
The police chief said the security guards in the convoy were Blackwater, Mr. Rabee said,
though he does not know for sure if that was the case.
“I said to him that I’ll follow the killer anywhere in the world, even in American law,” Mr.
Rabee said by telephone from England. “He said: ‘I understand you are angry but you
can’t do anything. They’re under our protection.’ I said, ‘Do you think that’s fair?’ “
In the clubby atmosphere of private security firms in Iraq, senior members of rival
companies are often reluctant to criticize Blackwater.
But among the rank and file of security contractors, Blackwater guards are
regularly ridiculed as cowboys who are relentlessly and pointlessly aggressive,
carry excessive weaponry and do not appear to have top-of-the-line training.
Passing Blackwater convoys sometimes intimidates even Westerners, who fear
coming under attack if they make a wrong move.
The Iraqi government said it had revoked Blackwater’s license. But it appeared
that the company had not possessed one in many months, according to a security
official in Baghdad, but had begun work on getting one in spring of 2007.
MORE:
Terrorists Back On The Streets Of
Baghdad
09-21-2007 (AFP)
US private security company Blackwater was back on the streets of Baghdad, four days
after being grounded following a shooting incident in which 10 people were killed, a US
official said Friday.
Amazing News!
8.2% Of Baghdad Under Iraqi Control
9/21/2007 By ROBERT BURNS, The Associated Press
WASHINGTON: The portion of Baghdad in which Iraqi security forces are in control with
minimal help from the American military has grown only slightly in recent months, to just
over 8 percent.
[Maj. Gen. Joseph] Fil said 8.2 percent of Baghdad’s 474 neighborhoods are now in
what the U.S. military calls a “retain” phase, meaning security is being maintained by
Iraqi forces with U.S. troops in a reserve role. That is up only slightly from late June
when Fil told reporters that it stood at 7 percent.
IF YOU DON’T LIKE THE RESISTANCE
END THE OCCUPATION
[No Shit Dep’t]
“To Have A Sovereign Government That
Doesn’t Control All Of Its Provinces
Doesn’t Make A Lot Of Sense To Me”
September 20, 2007 Associated Press
WASHINGTON - In another sign of U.S. struggles in Iraq, the target date for putting Iraqi
authorities in charge of security in all 18 provinces has slipped yet again, to at least July.
An independent commission that examined the issue of provincial Iraqi control this
summer concluded in a report to Congress on Sept. 4 that the process is too convoluted
and an impediment to the overall U.S. goals of speeding the transition to Iraqi control
and supporting sovereignty.
“Our current policy of determining when a province may or may not be controlled
by its own government reinforces the popular perception of the (U.S.-led) coalition
as an occupation force,” according to the commission, headed by retired Marine
Gen. James Jones. “This may contribute to increased violence and instability.”
The commission recommended that all 18 provinces return to Iraqi control immediately.
U.S. forces would continue to operate in the areas they are now, in coordination with
Iraqi authorities; Iraqi control would mean U.S. troops could transition to less combatintense roles.
In an interview Wednesday, Jones said he and the other commissioners got the strong
impression from Iraqi officials they met in Baghdad this summer that they want full
provincial control without further delay.
“The whole process seems to be acting as more of a brake on progress than a help,”
Jones said. “If the Iraqi government is willing, I think we should be putting as much on
them as possible.
“To have a sovereign government that doesn’t control all of its provinces doesn’t
make a lot of sense to me.”
Welcome To Sovereign Iraq:
Where Foreign Occupiers Pressure
Citizens To Become Their Police
Barber Wisam Ahmed Abded Ali listens to a U.S. soldier at his shop in Baghdad’s
Azamiyah neighborhood Sept. 17, 2007. The soldier pressured Ali to join a U.S.
proposed police force made up of the neighborhood’s residents. The barber declined.
(AP Photo/Hamza Hendawi)
No Oil For Blood:
Major Oil Companies Reject Iraq:
“No Legal Framework For Signing Deals
And Ensuring They Last Beyond The
Current Government”
9.11.07 Wall St. Journal
For large multinationals, the lack of security makes any meaningful field-work difficult,
But more crucially: Since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein during the U.S.-led invasion
in 2003, there has been no legal framework for signing deals and ensuring they last
beyond the current government.
A Shell spokeswoman said her company would only consider working in Iraq
when living and working conditions in the country improve.
A BP spokesman said the company would consider it only when the security and
political situation stabilizes.
OCCUPATION PALESTINE
[Thanks to Mark Shapiro, who sent this in.]
[To check out what life is like under a murderous military occupation by foreign
terrorists, go to: www.rafahtoday.org The occupied nation is Palestine. The
foreign terrorists call themselves “Israeli.”]
DANGER: POLITICIANS AT WORK
[Thanks to Mark Shapiro, who sent this in.]
Do you have a friend or relative in the service? Forward GI Special along,
or send us the address if you wish and we’ll send it regularly. Whether in
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 war, inside the armed services and at home. Send email
requests to address up top or write to: The Military Project, Box 126, 2576
Broadway, New York, N.Y. 10025-5657
CLASS WAR REPORTS
WE HAVE POWER -- LET’S USE IT
All Out To Defend The 2 Local 10
Brothers Assaulted By Cops In
The Port Of Sacramento!
Mobilize Workers To Stop Police
Attacks And The “War On Terror”
20 Sep 2007 Maritime Worker Monitor Via New York City Labor Against The War
All Out for ILWU Protest
Rally at Yolo County Superior Court
213 Third St.; Woodland, CA
Thursday October 4, 2007
BUSES LEAVE FROM LOCAL 10 @ 6AM Oct. 4
On August 23, West Sacramento cops and private SSA security guards viciously
attacked, two Local 10 brothers returning to work after lunch on the SSA terminal.
When the guards demanded to search the car, the brothers asked to see the
MARSEC (maritime security) reg and called the Local 10 business agent. This
enraged the guards who called the cops.
While talking by phone to BA MacKay and without provocation, they were
assaulted, dragged from the car, maced and jailed, charged with “trespassing”.
How the hell can a longshoreman be “trespassing”, after returning to work at the
terminal.
They’d already shown PMA ID and a driver’s license.
This is racial profiling and police brutality. The longshoremen were black and the
cops white.
Such is the brutal face of the “war on terror” on the docks.
It’ll get worse unless we take united action to defend these brothers.
An injury to two is an injury to all!
Local 10 has called for a protest rally at the Woodland courthouse to defend these
brothers. Ship Clerks’ Local 34 and the Portland longshore Local 8, are joining in the
protest. We need to have all the locals on the Coast participating as we did for the
successful campaign in the Neptune Jade protest for the Liverpool dockers in front of the
Oakland courthouse.
So far the ILWU International has remained silent on this critical struggle, just as we go
into contract negotiations.
Remember longshoremen going to work in Oakland got shot by cops attacking antiwar
protesters in front of SSA and APL terminals at the start of the war?
Now this Sacramento attack!
Even in our own union, the Grievance Committee had to deal with one new member with
a personal grudge who snitched on an upstanding Local 10 brother to ICE (Immigration
and Customs) agents simply because he was of Arab descent.
Isn’t that “conduct unbecoming a union brother”?
DUMP THE TWIC CARD -- THE FEDS’ BRANDING IRON!
On another front of the government’s phony “war on terror”, longshoremen and ship
clerks are angry and rightfully so about TWIC [Transportation Worker Identification
Credential] cards being forced on us.
To add insult to injury they want us to pay for it.
Reminds you of the racist South African government’s “pass cards” forced on workers
under apartheid. A police state uses “biometric” cards and spy cameras keep tabs on
you 24/7.
That’s government repression.
It’s another outrageous example of how the war abroad means a war on our rights
here as portworkers.
Brothers and sisters, we’ve got to stand together.
Like the preamble to Local 10’s Constitution says “organization of the working
class and unity of action” are “imperative and essential” to defend “the
fundamental rights of labor”.
That’s why Local 10 initiated the call for the Oct. 20 Labor Conference to Stop the
War.
Why are maritime bosses and their government so hot for TWIC?
By invoking “port security” in the “war on terror,” the feds want to bypass the
union hiring hall.
They want to say who can and can’t work on the waterfront.
Intrusive background checks are made by Bush’s Transportation Security
Administration (TSA) to see who’s been arrested before.
You can be deemed a threat to port security and denied access to marine
terminals for many different kinds of past arrests and “offenses” that have
nothing to do with terrorism.
Back in the day, longshoremen stopped work if a union brother was denied work
because of government screening (ILWU Dispatcher Jan. 4, 1952 front page). They
even set up a legal defense fund for victimized workers.
How many longshoremen have been unfairly deregistered or deported because of
background checks since 9/11?
And what is our union doing to defend them? That’s what a union is supposed to do.
For anyone denied waterfront employment, the appeals process is blatantly
biased.
Coast Guard brass, who often retire to big money jobs with oil and shipping
companies, pick the judges.
The Coast Guard’s administrative court system is stacked against maritime
workers, as shown by the Baltimore Sun (June 24), one of the most respected
maritime newspapers in the U. S.
The Sun’s in-depth report was based on federal court records, internal memos and the
testimony of a former U. S. Coast Guard (USCG) judge who testified that Chief Judge
Joseph Ingolia directed judges to rule against maritime workers and “assure rulings
favorable to the USCG.”
The Coast Guard admitted that maritime workers won only 14 of 6,300 charges
since 1999.
A blind crane operator has a better chance of landing a box in the hold of a ship
than a longshoreman does of winning a TWIC appeal!
THE TWIC “BACKGROUND CHECK” AND MORE
Longshore workers already have PMA identification cards, seamen have the merchant
mariners document and truckers have drivers’ licenses. So why all the hype about
TWIC, Transportation Worker Identification Credential, or is it Transport Workers In
Chains? If you think that the Sacramento and Oakland attacks were bad, it’ll only get
worse, unless we organize against it.
TWIC is a loaded gun pointed at our heads, as Bush’s Transportation Security
Administration (TSA) runs background checks to see who’s been busted before.
So, who hasn’t?
The criminal “justice” system makes sure most working-class youth, especially
minorities go through the wringer. A huge number end up in jail at some point.
Of course, law-breakers like Bush and Cheney never go to jail.
Unveiling “Phase III” of the TWIC program in 2004, the TSA boasted that
“communications technologies tied to the program will allow TSA to interface with other
federal, state and local agencies.” TWIC will carry electronic snoop data of every kind.
It’s another step towards the national ID card they’ve been dreaming about for so
long.
A journal devoted to the big business of “homeland security” (HSToday) brags: “The
TWIC card will have all the data and biometric information necessary to reliably verify
the holder’s identity.”
Biometric identity data -- like race, skin color, eye color, fingerprints, what else? Credit
history, phone calls, favorite web sites. How about the books you take out of the library,
or movies you see?
This is no joke: Section 802 of the USA Patriot Act is aimed straight at labor,
redefining “terrorism” to include actions that “appear to be intended” to
“intimidate or coerce a civilian population or influence the policy of a government
by intimidation or coercion.” Job actions or strikes at contract time could be
deemed illegal.
For the big business government and both its parties, this can mean any picket
line or protest.
Marvin Gaye in his song “What’s Goin’ On” said it years ago during the Vietnam War:
“Picket lines, picket signs, don’t punish me with brutality.” The PMA’s Miniace shortly
after 9/11 started blaring propaganda about how maritime employers and longshoremen
together are the “first line of defense.”
A year later, during the 2002 ILWU longshore contract negotiations, Bush
threatened a military takeover of the ports if there were any job actions by
longshore workers on the docks. But, of course, when employers locked us out
and shut down every port on the West Coast, Bush didn’t call that a “threat to port
security.”
Then, to make sure we understood the “war on terror,” at Democratic Senator
Feinstein’s request, he invoked the slave labor Taft-Hartley law, forcing us back to
work under the employers’ conditions.
A few months later, the war started. Cops on the Oakland docks shot longshoremen and
antiwar protesters with “non-lethal” weapons and then- Democratic Mayor, now-Attorney
General Jerry Brown backed them.
Both Democrat and Republican parties keep shredding the Bill of Rights and the
Constitution, while voting to fund the war.
And they want us to go along with it.
No way.
We, longshoremen have a proud tradition of standing up for our rights and the
rights of others.
WE HAVE POWER -- LET’S USE IT
THE LA COUNTY FEDERATION OF LABOR PASSED A MOTION
FOR WORKPLACE ACTIONS TO STOP THE WAR:
A BOLD WORKERS’ PROTEST ACTION HERE IN THE BAY AREA
COULD HAVE A REBELLIOUS RIPPLE EFFECT ACROSS THE
COUNTRY.
Local 10 has said loud and clear that we don’t want federal security agents in our
union hall to process TWIC cards. And we’re not going to pay for the snitch
cards. Maritime workers didn’t vote for electronic shackles and we won’t pay for
them either!
Our Canadian ILWU longshore brothers and sisters have vehemently protested the
background checks.
When longshore workers and seamen came down to the front for work, we didn’t have to
show a squeaky clean record to get a job. Like our Canadian brothers and sisters, the
ILWU has in the past protested government screening. Past president Jimmy Herman
chaired the Committee Against Waterfront Screening, during the McCarthy period when
the government was trying to ban militant maritime workers from the ships and docks.
ILWU successfully defended President Harry Bridges against four attempts to deport him
for being a communist and we offered refuge to militants who were purged from other
maritime unions. Nowadays, ILWU officers go along with TWIC waterfront screening,
while union members are targeted.
Today, Bush and his criminal cronies look like rats jumping off a sinking ship. Rumsfeld
is thrown over the side. Rove quits under the pressure of being ordered to testify in court
for illegally firing attorney generals. Attorney General Gonzales dumped in disgrace.
But the Democratic Party, having swept Congressional elections in a mandate to
end the war, keep the war going and eagerly support the “war on terror”.
The real criminals -- the “oil emperors” who torture, terrorize, bomb, lie, steal and
violate rights supposedly guaranteed in the constitution -- get richer by the day.
Labor strikes against war has been used effectively by workers in other countries
and could succeed here too.
The LA County Federation of Labor passed a motion for workplace actions to stop
the war.
Longshore workers along with other workers have the power to stop the wars in
Iraq and Afghanistan and turn the tide on the “war on terror”.
A bold workers’ protest action here in the Bay Area could have a rebellious ripple
effect across the country.
The Labor Conference to Stop the War called by Locals 10 and 34 will be held on
October 20 at our union hall to discuss how to organize actions.
Union activists from around the country and from South Africa, Britain and Japan have
been responding enthusiastically to this call.
Longshoremen have made history before and we can do it again -- and we need
to, before all our rights are taken away.
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