Dissident Veteran For Peace

Think about -- putting into context -- somebody moves in and decides to take your house over. You know, you're going to fight for it and that's exactly what they did.

Source: US Army Staff Sergeant Kevin Rice speaking (at 5:57) in the 2014 documentary film Korengal on Afghani resistance to US forces in the Korangal Valley. US forces maintained a presence in the "Valley of Death" for about five years. In April 2010, US forces abandoned the outposts there. By the time commanders decided the valley wasn't so vital after all, forty-two American troops had died in fighting and hundreds more were wounded along with uncounted Afghani and other casualties.

A U.S. Army soldier watches as U.S. Air Force F-15 fighter jets destroy "insurgent" positions with a bomb, after a 20-minute gun battle in Kunar province, Afghanistan's Korengal Valley, Aug. 13, 2009.

See also: "My Worst Nightmare and the Korengal Valley" from the On Violence blog.

Labels: Afghanistan, film & television, military, quotations, War

Rabbi Marvin Hier, Allen Falk, and Mikey Weinstein (he of the misnamed Military Religious Freedom Foundation) are all screeching about the photo above--Heads must roll! No, they're not howling because the Marine scout snipers pictured in 2010 in Afghanistan were part of the +10-year-long US occupation of that country. No, they're not incensed over the death toll of Afghan civilians since the US invaded in 2001 or the Marines who apparently desecrated Taliban corpses. No, the real outrage is that these Marines posed with an "SS" flag. Oy, the humanity! These Marines are not Jewish-compliant and the Corps must be whipped into shape.

When I first read about this episode, to their credit, the Corps was saying that "disciplinary action was not warranted" against the Marines in the photo. Today, however, the Jewish onslaught seems to be bearing fruit and the Marine Corps Times reports that Commandant Jim Amos is "sorry" and "has ordered an investigation". Abe Foxman and the ADL are "pleased".

Don't hold your breath waiting for Hier, Falk, Weinstein, Foxman and their minions to condemn the band KISS and its Jewish Israeli front man Gene Simmons for their use of the "SS" symbol (see below). Likewise, don't look for ejaculations of outrage over the symbol that appears on the blade near the hilt of US Navy swords (photo at bottom; click to enlarge). The symbol bears a disturbing resemblance to a well-known hate symbol appearing on the flag and military equipment of the violent racist and apartheid state, Israel.

Labels: Abraham Foxman, Afghanistan, Jews, military

A local Puget Sound NPR affiliate, KPLU, has aired a fluff piece on the "Hope for Heroism" program. Check it out at " 'Hope for Heroism' Project - Israeli Soldiers Help US Vets."

Labels: Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel, Israel Lobby, National Public Radio

It's been almost three years since I posted a new cartoon by Carlos Latuff to this blog. So, to make up for lost time below are five cartoons that he's produced since then.

Labels: Afghanistan, art and literature, Carlos Latuff, Iraq, Obama, Pakistan, United States

Right: A farmer argues that some of his sheep were killed by an American artillery strike. Listening is Gen. Abdul Razik, the commander of the Afghan Border Patrol, Lt. Col. William Clark and an interpreter. Photo by J.M. Simpson

The Lakewood, WA-based Fort Lewis Ranger has an article by J. M. Simpson in its January 27, 2010, print edition that discusses cooperation between the US Army in Afghanistan and Abdul Razik. An apparent online version of the article is much sanitized concerning Razik while in the print edition Simpson describes Razik as "the leader of a tribal militia and Afghan Border Police (ABP) force that extends across Kandahar and Helmand provinces." Simpson says Razik "is the most powerful Afghan official in the southern part of the country." Simpson continues with a physical description of the man but eventually tells readers bluntly, "Razik is a drug lord." Simpson continues:

By controlling both Kandahar and Helmand--which produce 80 percent of Afghanistan's opium, which consequently accounts for 90 percent of the world's supply--Razik has become very wealthy.

Estimates are that he makes between $5 and $6 million per month by running drugs ...

According to UNICEF the annual gross national income per capita of Afghanistan was $250 in 2007.

In America, we purport to be staunchly opposed to drugs and drug dealers. Hundreds of thousands of Americans are in prison for drug crimes and "According to FBI reports, 83 percent of drug arrests are for possession of illegal drugs alone." US troops are routinely and randomly tested for illicit drug use. So, why are US forces working with a violent drug kingpins like Razik?

Well, according to Simpson, Razik's drug "wealth has allowed him to create a 3500-man border patrol force ... which is fiercely loyal to him" and Razik aligned himself and his "force" with the US. Lt. Col. William Clark, commander of the Ft. Lewis-based 5th Stryker Brigade's 8th Squadron, 1st Cavalry Regiment, knows all about Razik "and as such he has carefully cultivated a relationship with Razik in order for both men to get what they want." Simpson writes: " 'We understand each other; we get along,' said Clark before a recent meeting. They meet several times a week." The rest of the article goes on to describe how Clark and Razik reach an unspoken accomodation that will allow Razik's drugs to continue to flow freely as the Americans set up new "highway checkpoints on the Afghanistan/Pakistan border."

Ironically, in the same issue of the Fort Lewis Ranger featuring Simpson's article "8-1 'talks' with one of Taliban's most wanted" you will find a short AP article about a now-concluded court-martial against a young soldier who is blamed for the drug overdose death of his girlfriend in his Ft. Lewis barracks. She died after taking a mixture including oxycodone and oxymorphone--both are made from opium. Reportedly, at his court-martial, Private Timothy E. Bennitt "spoke authoritatively about how he began using painkillers when he returned to Fort Lewis after spending more than six months in Afghanistan ... Bennitt told Army Lt. Col. Kwasi Hawks, who is presiding over the court-martial, that he had surgery for an eye injury ..." Bennitt was found guilty of manslaughter last Friday. Meanwhile, Abdul Razik thrives and is one of America's good buddies.

Razik was also profiled last month in Harper's in "The master of Spin Boldak: Undercover with Afghanistan's drug-trafficking border police" (read a long excerpt here) and was featured in a 2006 article "Inspiring Tale of Triumph over Taliban Not All it Seems" by Graeme Smith in the Canadian Globe and Mail.

Labels: Afghanistan, crime, Empire, War

My first response this morning to the news of Barack Obama's Nobel Peace Prize was disbelief. My next response was to recall part of a story on I heard on NPR yesterday, entitled "Capture Or Kill? Lawyers Eye Options For Terrorists." Below is a relevant excerpt:

Given the difficulty of detaining high-value terrorists in the United States, Cuba, Afghanistan, black sites or foreign countries, another possibility exists.

"To be perfectly blunt, I don't think that they'll pick them up at all," says Ken Anderson of the Hoover Institution and American University's Washington College of Law, who has written about these issues. "I think that we've actually allowed the courts to arrange the incentives to kill rather than capture."

Many national security experts interviewed for this story agree that it has become so hard for the U.S. to detain people that in many instances, the U.S. government is killing them instead.

Last month, American forces staged a raid on a car in Somalia. The man inside the car was a suspected terrorist on the FBI's most wanted list. American troops did not seize him. Instead, helicopters fired on the car, and commandos retrieved his body.

The decision to award the Nobel Peace Prize to Obama has been widely described as "aspirational." It may be, however, that delusional is a more apt description in light of Obama's campaign promises and track record as president. Consider the following partial list:

• Candidate Obama pledged to expand the combat forces of the Marines and Army
• Candidate Obama pledged to escalate the war in Afghanistan
• President Obama authorized killer drone attacks in Pakistan in his very first week in office
• President Obama has not ended the US occupation of Iraq
• President Obama has not closed the Guantanamo prison
• President Obama has not ended the little discussed but deadly American military intervention in Somalia
• President Obama has been utterly unable to go beyond tepid, hollow rhetoric concerning murderous US-backed Israel
• President Obama has left "all options on the table" when it comes to US arm-twisting vis-a-vis Iran

With Nobel Peace Prize laureates like Obama who needs war mongers?

See also: "Professor Hakimi's Solution to Gitmo"

Labels: Afghanistan, drones, Empire, Iran, Iraq, Israel, militarism, Obama, Somalia, United States, War

In the July 2009 issue of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, Senator James Abourezk writes (p. 24) about the decision of the Obama administration to drop espionage charges against AIPAC staffers Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman. Abourezk says: "Strange, they [prosecutors] sent the government official, Larry Franklin, to prison for over 12 years, but didn't feel they could win the case against the two AIPAC honchos." Former Pentagon analyst Larry Franklin (he worked for Neocons Douglas Feith and Paul Wolfowitz) pled guilty in the case and was, indeed, sentenced to 12 years in prison in April, 2006. However, Franklin apparently got lost on his way. I checked the Federal Bureau of Prisons web site today and Larry Anthony Franklin is "NOT in BOP CUSTODY."

The spring 2009 edition of the War Resisters League's (WRL) WIN: Through Revolutionary Nonviolence magazine suggests that the editors are committed to losing the struggle for peace. This issue and the Winter 2009 issue have almost nothing to say about Israel's Hanukkah Massacre last winter or the ongoing US support of Israel's decades long war of attrition against the Palestinian people. So, why have they left out one of the linchpin conflicts of our lifetime? Perhaps a clue emerges in the presence of two pieces linked to the Democratic Party-front and Zionist-dominated United for Peace and Justice (UFPJ).

On page 21 of the current issue, UFPJ conditions the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan on transforming "America's failed approach" with "bold, peace solutions." UFPJ style of "peace and justice" is decidedly of the "White Man's Burden" school. They want the US to "pressure President Hamid Karzai" and to "Push for an independent international commission to investigate and press grievances" and they have plenty of other suggestions to use American power to 'improve' Afghan society for the benighted Afghans. By contrast, consider the remarks of one Marine on Vietnam:

I believe that if we had and would keep our bloody, dollar-crooked fingers out of the business of these nations so full of depressed, exploited people they will arrive at a solution of their own. . . . And if unfortunately their revolution must be of a violent type because the 'haves' refuse to share with the 'have nots' by any peaceful method, at least what they get will be their own and not the American style, which they don’t want and above all don’t want crammed down their throats by Americans.

Source: David M. Shoup, General, USMC (ret.), Medal of Honor winner, as quoted in "Former Marine Commandant Questions Vietnam." Congressional Record. Feb. 20, 1967; 113:3976.

In the Winter issue UFPJ organizing coordinator Judith LeBlanc says: "Now the peace movement must retool ..." I agree and we can start by dumping pro-Empire, anti-democratic, Obama-supporting Zionists like LeBlanc. Don't hold your breath for that, though.

In closing, it's worth noting that the WRL can't even get the history of Afghanistan right. In a WRL statement on "Beyond Afghanistan" printed on page 3 of the current issue they claim: "The Taliban rose to power with the support of the U.S. and Pakistani intelligence services, intervening against the USSR's invasion." The Taliban did not emerge as a force until 1994--more than five years after the Soviet withdrawal. The Taliban did not take power in Kabul until 1996. More importantly, the WRL statement fails to note that the Carter administration sponsored weapons transfers to Islamic militants before the Soviet invasion precisely in order to provoke an invasion.

Labels: Afghanistan, anti-war movement, crime, Israel Lobby, LeBlanc, Obama, United for Peace and Justice, United States, Zionism

Photo caption: The soldiers of U.S. Army Special Forces and Auxillary at Firebase Cobra pose in front of the American flag for a group photo. Photograph by Phillip Chester © National Geographic Television and Film

Seven thousand miles from home, US Army Special Forces (SF) troops occupy a small compound in a village in southern Afghanistan. They call this outpost of empire Firebase Cobra and Inside the Green Berets is the title of the 2007 National Geographic Society documentary film about it. The allusion to a poisonous snake is apt, as is the narrator's unwitting description of it as a "modern-day Fort Apache."

Here's what the White Mountain Apache Tribe web site says about Fort Apache:

In July 1869 Brevet Colonel (Major) John Green of the U.S. 1st Cavalry led a scouting expedition of more than 120 troops into the White Mountains area from Camp Goodwin and Camp Grant to the south. Seeking to kill or capture any Apache people they encountered, the expedition headed north up the San Carlos River, across the Black River, and to the White River in the vicinity of the future site of Fort Apache.

Army scouts reported finding over 100 acres of cornfields along the White River. Escapa—an Apache chief that the Anglos called Miguel—visited the camp, and invited Col. Green to visit his village. Green sent Captain John Barry, urging him “if possible to exterminate the whole village.”

When Captain Barry arrived at Miguel's village, however, he found white flags "flying from every hut and from every prominent point," and "the men, women and children came out to meet them and went to work at once to cut corn for their horses, and showed such a spirit of delight at meeting them that the officers [said] if they had fired upon them they would have been guilty of cold-blooded murder."

Green returned to the White Mountains in November, and met again with the Apache leaders Escapa (Miguel), Eskininla (Diablo), Pedro, and Eskiltesela. They agreed to the creation of a military post and reservation, and directed Green to the confluence of the East and North Forks of the White River:

I have selected a site for a military post on the White Mountain River which is the finest I ever saw. The climate is delicious, and said by the Indians to be perfectly healthy, free from all malaria. Excellently well wooded and watered. It seems as though this one corner of Arizona were almost its garden spot, the beauty of its scenery, the fertility of its soil and facilities for irrigation are not surpassed by any place that ever came under my observation. Building material of fine pine timber is available within eight miles of this site. There is also plenty of limestone within a reasonable distance.

This post would be of the greatest advantage for the following reasons: It would compel the White Mountain Indians to live on their reservation or be driven from their beautiful country which they almost worship. It would stop their traffic in corn with the hostile tribes, they could not plant an acre of ground without our permission as we know every spot of it. It would make a good scouting post, being adjacent to hostile bands on either side. Also a good supply depot for Scouting expeditions from other posts, and in fact, I believe, would do more to end the Apache War than anything else.

So, instead of killing all the White Mountain Apaches the US Army used their land as a staging ground to wage war against other Indians and enlisted their aid in doing so. As the web site notes:

In 1871 General George Crook was named commander of the Department of Arizona. Crook recognized that his regular soldiers were no match for the Native people he was sent to subdue, so he enlisted the aid of Indian men as scouts. In August 1871 he made his first visit to Fort Apache and engaged about 50 men from Pedro and Miguel’s bands to serve as Apache Scouts. The Scouts would play a decisive role in the success of the Army in the so-called “Apache Wars” of the next fifteen years, ending with the final surrender of the Chiricahua leader Geronimo in 1886. In part because of the Scouts’ service, our ancestors were able to maintain a portion of our homeland as the White Mountain Apache Reservation. ...

The same divide-and-conquer strategy is at work in Afghanistan today by American and NATO troops.

Any way, back to the video. At about 3:15 into the film the "Assistant Team Commander" and senior enlisted man, "Sam," tells us that in two months his unit has "killed almost 200 people." He quickly corrects himself, "Taliban. Not people, just Taliban." You see, the Taliban are not people and everyone the Green Berets kill are necessarily Taliban or else they wouldn't have been killed because they only kill terrorists, not people. How perfectly nice and neat and circular. Seconds later, the narrator, producer, and director Steven Hoggard actually has the gall to tells us that the troops are there to also "win hearts and minds."

Several minutes later, the SFs are in an Afghani village whence the commanding officer, Captain "Rob" informs us: "We know that these people are relatively scared of us because the last few times we've been in this area we've been in fights. So, they're being a little bit more obedient than other places we go." The villagers have in fact hidden from the Americans for about twenty minutes before coming out to receive, among other things, hand-crank radios that can be tuned to only one frequency—that of the US-sponsored propaganda radio station.

At 21:10, we watch Firebase Cobra's 105 mm Howitzer "firing at Taliban targets somewhere beyond the dark horizon." It will do so, we are told, "throughout the night." There is no suggestion that the rounds are guided by a forward observer somewhere. Notwithstanding this, a few minutes later (29:06), Sam is whining: "I'll fight anybody all day long. I don't care. I'll fight a hundred of them guys. No Problem. But IEDs—I don't want to have nothing to do with them damn things. It's the coward's way to fight." A bit later (37:28), we are treated to scenes of buildings in a village previously destroyed by 1000-pound bombs dropped after Sam's team called in an air strike. The narrator generously admits that "perhaps a number of innocent civilians" were killed in the attack. Want to know who the terrorists and cowards are, Sam? Take a look around you and in the mirror, too.

The film crew's visit with the SFs is cut short by a deadly IED attack by the Afghani resistance. In short, while it is consciously pro-US propaganda, the documentary reveals the moral bankruptcy of the US and NATO occupation of Afghanistan and the ignorance/moral cowardice of the troops who leave their homes to kill and maim for the empire.

I'll close with a quote from a two-time Medal of Honor winner, retired Marine Major General Smedley Butler:

WAR is a racket. It always has been.

It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. ...

Until 1898 we didn't own a bit of territory outside the mainland of North America. At that time our national debt was a little more than $1,000,000,000. Then we became "internationally minded." We forgot, or shunted aside, the advice of the Father of our country. We forgot George Washington's warning about "entangling alliances." We went to war. We acquired outside territory. ...

It would have been far cheaper (not to say safer) for the average American who pays the bills to stay out of foreign entanglements. For a very few this racket, like bootlegging and other underworld rackets, brings fancy profits, but the cost of operations is always transferred to the people -- who do not profit. ...

But the soldier pays the biggest part of the bill.

If you don't believe this, visit the American cemeteries on the battlefields abroad. Or visit any of the veteran's hospitals in the United States. ...

Boys with a normal viewpoint were taken out of the fields and offices and factories and classrooms and put into the ranks. There they were remolded; they were made over; they were made to "about face"; to regard murder as the order of the day. ... We used them for a couple of years and trained them to think nothing at all of killing or of being killed.

Then, suddenly, we discharged them and told them to make another "about face" ! ... Many, too many, of these fine young boys are eventually destroyed, mentally, because they could not make that final "about face" alone.

... Physically, they are in good shape; mentally, they are gone.

There are thousands and thousands of these cases, and more and more are coming in all the time. ...

See also:

• "What is a Troop?"
• "Soldier, We Love You"
• "Who's "Manly" Now?"

Revised 31 Jan 2010: Expanded info on and quote by Smedley Butler
Revised 30 Jun 2016: Fixed dead links and added link re:"moral cowardice"

Labels: Afghanistan, Empire, George Washington, Indians, military, United States, video, War

From the Pasadena Weekly's

07-27-2006

Labels: Afghanistan, Iraq, War