GI Special C/o 7.12.03 Print it out. Send it on.
GI SPECIAL #56
“I, a stranger and afraid, in a world I never made.”
“We Didn’t Win This War, Not At All.”
“I Don’t Know What I’m Doing Here”
TROOPS DEFY ORDERS NOT TO TALK TO PRESS
Lee Gordon, The London Independent, 13 July 2003
Sitting ducks for snipers' bullets, far from home and unable to contact their families, US troops in Iraq are finding their morale slipping away. Lee Gordon talks to servicemen and women for whom victory in the Gulf now has a hollow ring.
'We didn't win this war, not at all," said reserve infantryman Eric Holt, on guard outside the Republican Palace in Baghdad. "I don't know what I'm doing here and I don't like what's happening in this city," continued the 28-year-old from New York State. "It ain't right for the folks here. You know, there are a whole lot of our girls getting pregnant just so they can go home quick."
Morale among troops in the Iraqi capital has plunged, not least because of new orders that could see them there for a year instead of six months.
Four soldiers have been shot by snipers or at close range near Baghdad University
in the last seven days.
Investigations have been hampered by the decision of the military police to withdraw from the campus.
Violence is commonplace in Baghdad. On Monday a soldier was killed and three others injured when a home-made bomb was tossed on to a military convoy as it emerged from an underpass. The explosion ripped into a Humvee military car, tossing it across the road.
A crowd gathered to watch as the three injured soldiers were loaded into another Humvee. Sergeant Patrick Compton, who bore the brunt of the explosion, lay across the front seat of the damaged vehicle holding his torn and badly burnt arm, screaming for help. He was helped into the rescue vehicle but later died of his injuries.
Asked about the incident, a sergeant in the military police smiled and lifted his helmet to wipe the sweat that was running down his face. "We're going to help clean up this mess and move out of here. Quickly. There is no damn chance of us catching anyone." Pointing to his men, who were trying to hold back a crowd of around 100
pushing towards the debris, he said: "There is nothing more we can do."
Outside Baghdad the situation is also difficult. Border guards, far away from internet cafés and international telephones, find contacting their families particularly problematic. Forbidden from using military satellite communications, they often stop passing Iraqi traders and ask to use their telephones. A 22-year-old guard, part of a tank unit at the border, said he had not spoken to his wife for three months. It takes at least two months to receive a reply to a letter.
Perhaps not surprisingly, anecdotal evidence points to a growing number of breaches of military discipline. A spokesman said any soldier who fell pregnant would almost certainly be dishonorably discharged from the army and might even face a court martial, unless she was pregnant by her husband.
Prostitutes have now appeared. Rana, a 21-year-old Iraqi woman from Saddam's home town of Tikrit, said she had been working as a prostitute for a month near the army barracks in Abu Nawaz Street, central Baghdad. Most of her clients are US soldiers. She charges $50 for a night, including a room in a hotel in nearby Saddoon Street.
A receptionist at the hotel, where rooms are $30 for a twin, said there was no prostitution before the invasion. "We don't want our women to do these things," he said, adding that soldiers also try to sell handguns to make money. "They come in here and ask if I want to buy small guns a few times a week but we don't need any, we have a Kalashnikov."
The 11pm curfew means prostitutes and the brothels conduct their business early in the day. "Commanders turn a blind eye to soldiers who consort with prostitutes," a tank soldier said. "They understand the pressure on their troops."
"We're working 14 hours a day guarding and on patrol," a 21-year-old female reservist from Oklahoma said. "I finish and go straight to sleep then wake up an hour before duty, shower and start again. I don't think I can take an extra six months. I was looking forward to going home in October."
She spoke on the condition that she remain anonymous after her commander
ordered troops not to give media interviews. Her colleague, a 26-year-old reservist from Houston who was studying to become a police officer, said she planned to quit the army as soon as she got home.
"I've been in the army eight years and I can't do it any more, not after this. We're sitting here like targets and the Iraqis are getting bolder. They're taking a pop in broad daylight." One of the military policemen from her squad had cracked up and been sent home this week after a skirmish with Iraqi attackers, she said. "When I heard we might get another six months I wanted to cry."
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OCCUPATION ISN’T LIBERATION
BRING ALL THE TROOPS HOME NOW!
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FORWARD OBSERVATIONS:
“I Personally Don’t Believe We ‘Liberated’ The Iraqis”
“War doesn’t change anything. This place was fucked up before we came, and it’s fucked up now. I personally don’t believe we ‘liberated’ the Iraqis. Time will tell.”
Second Platoon, Bravo Company, First Recon, U.S. Marines Medic Robert “Doc” Bryan
(Rolling Stone 7.24.03)
“They are screwing this up. Those idiots. Don’t they realize the world already hates us.?” Sgt. Brand Colbert, of same, on hearing BBC Radio Report on accidental killing of Iraqi civilians. (Rolling Stone 7.24.03
They're getting tired of us," Spec. James McNeely of the D.C. Army National Guard told The Washington Post recently. "Wouldn't you be mad if they invaded your country?"
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Soldiers’ Mom Slaps Down Bush
Nashville Tennesean web site Jul 3, 2003, E-Mail letter:
As a mother of one of our brave troops in Iraq, may I just say, Mr. President, Perhaps you truly do believe in the invincibility of our military; however, the next time you invite attacks on my son, and others, kindly stand in front of our soldiers, rather than hiding behind. Marticia
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Bush Disgusts Soldier’s Families:
“Let Them Come Home”
By KATHLEEN MELLEN, Staff Writer, Daily Hampshire Gazette
Saturday, July 12, 2003 -- Officially, the major combat in Iraq is over - but ask the families of U.S. soldiers still stationed amid the turmoil and violence there, and they will tell you that is hardly the case.
"This isn't over," said Laura Stranlund of Pelham, speaking about her son, Jonathan Miller, 22, who is in Iraq with the U.S. Army's 82nd Airborne Division.
Several other local families also have members still stationed in Iraq. Among them: Rob McAllister of Amherst and Caleb Gregory Ritter of Westhampton.
"It's a pretty scary place," Stranlund said of Iraq's capital, where her son is stationed. And she is terrified for her son's safety, she said.
Her fears were not allayed, she said, when President Bush during a July 2 news conference challenged those in Iraq who support anti-American violence, saying "bring 'em on."
"I am just disgusted, it was so irresponsible," Stranlund said of the president's remark. "This is a volunteer army, putting their lives on the line - this is not a football game."
It's not only bullets and explosives that worry her.
Stranlund said she recently learned that Miller, who daily faces torrid temperatures dressed in full battle gear, suffered heat stroke. Thankfully, she said, after running a high fever for two days, he fully recovered.
"As tired as we are, these guys are in 120-degree heat, wearing the same boots," she said. "The socks they brought with them have disintegrated. They're tired ... let them come home."
Barber, whose son Caleb Ritter, 22, is currently also stationed in Baghdad with the 82nd Airborne, said she isn't convinced that the American public supports the U.S. military presence in Iraq. She herself objects to it, she said.
"The Army markets the military to 18-year-olds who like sports and extreme games," she said. "I don't think it even crossed his mind that he might end up in combat."
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What do you think? Comments from service men and women, and veterans, are especially welcome. Send to the E-mail address up top.
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Hardcore Bush Loyalists and Republican Party Terrorist Remnants Resist Iraqi Liberation Army
John V. Whitbeck, Arab News Opinion 10 July 2003
For those formulating American foreign policy and dreaming of remaking the Middle East in their own image, the region appears to be full of surprises. The determined resistance of some Iraqis to the Western occupation of their country seems to have been genuinely unanticipated. It should not have been. If the United States were conquered and occupied by Arab armies which announced their intention to stay for years and to restructure the country’s government and economy along Islamic lines, would no Americans resist, not even “hardcore Bush loyalists” or “Republican Party remnants”?
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Do you have a friend or relative in the service? Forward this E-MAIL 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, at home and in Iraq, and information about other social protest movements here in the USA. Send requests to address up top.
YOU GOT THAT RIGHT
Eleanor Clift, MSNBC, 12 July 2003
American soldiers in Iraq are going on the record with reporters to say how unhappy they are, and how vulnerable they feel. You don’t do that in the military unless the conditions are dire.
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Lot’s Of Luck
“Well get it right eventually., hopefully before we fuck it up completely.” “Pentagon official” to Time Magazine reporter. (Time 7.14.03)
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IRAQ RESISTANCE ROUNDUP:
SCALE OF RESISTANCE ATTACKS ESCALATING FAST
“The growing intensity of the fighting was highlighted around the town of Balad, 40 miles north of Baghdad, where militants wounded 17 soldiers in an attack on a U.S. base.”
Hours later a separate group of 50 resistance fighters tried to ambush a U.S. convoy, resulting in an eight-hour fire fight that left 11 Iraqis dead.
Most attacks on U.S. soldiers are not even reported by the Pentagon, since military officials usually announce only those clashes in which Americans are killed or injured.” (Time Magazine, July 14, 2003)
(Note well: Seventeen soldiers hit in one attack on a base. An “eight-hour” firefight. )
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Bush Says “Bring ‘Em On”;
Iraqi Resistance Gets Some
The day after George W. Bullshit babbled his hysterical “Bring ‘em on” crap, 20 U.S. soldiers were wounded in attacks all across Iraq. Thanks a lot, Mr. Chickenhawk-in-Chief. (Time, July 14, 2003
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NEW RESISTANCE GROUP KILLS TWO U.S. SOLDIERS
Baghdad, Reuters, 07/11/ 2003
One U.S. soldier was shot dead and another was killed in a rocket-propelled grenade attack in Iraq, the U.S. military said yesterday,
The U.S. military said one soldier was killed when his convoy came under small arms fire near Al Mahmudiyah, about 40 km (25 miles) south of Baghdad, at around 6:30 p.m. (1430 GMT) on Wednesday evening.
Around four hours later, assailants fired rocket-propelled grenades at a convoy north of Baghdad, killing a soldier from the U.S. army's Fourth Infantry Division and wounding another, U.S. Central Command said in a statement.
The Arabic satellite channel al-Jazeera reported on Thursday it had received a message claiming responsibility for attacks on U.S. forces from a group called the Iraqi National Islamic Resistance which said it had no ties to Saddam.
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RESISTANCE HITS POLICE AGAIN
July 14 2003. SMH.COM.AU
A Baghdad bomb blast killed an Iraqi today. Today's bomb blast near a police station in a Baghdad suburb killed one Iraqi and wounded another, underlining that Iraq remains a dangerous place three months after US-led forces toppled Saddam.
A headless body lay at the scene after the explosion in the western suburb of Maysaloun, next to the wreckage of a car on its side with its roof ripped off.
The police station is visited by US soldiers, who have come under daily attacks in mainly Sunni Muslim central Iraq in recent weeks. Saddam, a Sunni, had strongholds in the region.
An Iraqi policeman was killed and four wounded in Baghdad earlier today, when they tried to help US forces who came under fire at a checkpoint.
Members of the new US-backed Iraqi police force have been attacked in apparent retaliation for cooperating with the occupying powers.
(For more see “Growing Iraqi resistance to American Rule at www.socialistworker.org.)
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OCCUPATION REPORT
Take The Money And Run….
U.S. Plans to Collect Now For Future Iraqi Oil Production; Pay Off Bush Buddies
Faisal Islam and Oliver Morgan, July 13, 2003, Observer
The US Export-Import Bank, a government trade promotion agency, has launched a campaign for a securitization of future Iraqi oil receipts to pay for the reconstruction work of foreign contractors.