There never was a good war or a bad peace. ~Ben Franklin
Truth in Recruiting - The Tulsa Peace Fellowship's Counter-Recruitment Update/Digest, for August 2009
Truth in Recruiting - "Don't Believe the Hype!"
The Tulsa Peace Fellowship's Counter-Recruitment Update/Digest, for August 2009
lead story:
More female veterans are winding up homeless
--factors that contribute to homelessness include mental trauma related to their military service and difficulty transitioning into the civilian economy
--many among homeless female veterans are single parents to boot
quote:
"Plenty of rich folks wants to fight. Give them the guns."
~Woody Guthrie
from the archives:
Lyrics to the song "War Pigs," by Black Sabbath (1978)
--an anti-war anthem, it singles out the poverty draft
--song was covered by The Flaming Lips, a band formed in Oklahoma City (in 1983) at a recent appearance
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pY13dE3bqm8
page one:
file under: providing a check and a balance against the Military-Industrial-Congressional complex
Funding pulled from outdated fighter plane designed to fight 'Cold War': $1.75 billion saved
--The F-22 fighter is on the chopping block: plans suspended to build 7 more unneeded planes
--Designed to fight the 'Cold War,' which ended 20 years ago, each plane costs $350 million each; some still 'on order' (purchase order not yet rescinded)
--A major victory is declared for the Obama Administration against entrenched porkbarrelling, in on-going battle against corporate-feeding on the U.S. fisc by the so-called defense industry
quote:
"If we can't get this right, what on earth can we get right?"
~U.S. Defence Secretary Robert Gates, a Republican holdover from the previous administration
facts & figures:
For every hour it is airborne, the F-22 Cold War fighter plane needs at least 30 hours on the ground at special maintenance facilities to ensure it can fly again. The F-22 is called a 'wasteful boondoggle' by military analysts.
A total of 187 have been built or are currently on order, as per previous funding bills from earlier administrations. The warplane never saw battle, and likely never will.
Remedy proposed to Pentagon's lax enforcement of its own rule against white supremacists in U.S. armed forces
--extremist tattoos such as a swastika disqualify an applicant for enlistment, identifying the applicant as a member of a hate group
did you know...?
Pentagon regulations prohibit racist extremism in the ranks. White supremacists need not apply.
featured book review:
When in war, why bomb the innocent?
--Historians argue that bombing civilians is a tragic and virtually ineffective strategy
quote, from the archives:
“The goddamned bombing campaign,’’ he screamed, “it’s been worth nothing, it’s done nothing, they’ve dropped more bombs than in all of Europe in all of World War II, and it hasn’t done a (expletive deleted) thing!’’
~Robert S. McNamara, former Secretary of Defense, at his last top-level meeting, going ballistic. He became unhinged when he was proven wrong about his pet theory and carpet bombing during the Vietnam War failed to accomplish any military purpose
analysis:
The Permanent War Economy: Parasitic Spending by the Pentagon Ruins U.S. Economy
facts:
Over a period of two years, the average U.S. motorist uses about as much fuel as does a single F-16 training jet in less than an hour.
The Abrams tank uses up 3.8 gallons of fuel in order to travel a single mile.
The Pentagon’s energy use in a single year could power all U.S. mass transit systems for nearly 14 years.
source: Victor W. Sidel, “The Impact of Military Preparedness and Militarism on War and the Environment,” in Austin and Bruch, eds., The Environmental Consequences of War, Cambridge University Press, 2000, page 441.
page two:
Case of Autistic Marine Brings Recruiting Problems to the Forefront
--Faced with quotas, recruiters are taking shortcuts that allow those unfit for service into the military.
--The Marine Corps is investigating the recruiter's conduct.
Oklahoma Veterans Sue Halliburton, KBR
--They claim the companies exposed soldiers to toxic smoke in Iraq and Afghanistan.
--Story in the Tulsa World
soldiers committing murders States-side:
Casualties of War, Part I: The Hell of War Comes Home
--follow up on Iraq veterans losing their moral compass, when among U.S. civilians
--recently demobilized American soldiers commit various felonies, including murder
from the archives:
The 1947 film noir Crossfire (directed by Edward Dmytryk) addressed PTSD post-WWII
--recently demobilized American soldiers experience malaise, shell shock, problems with re-entry into civilian life
--film addresses the difficulty transitioning into the civilian economy, after deployment overseas
--veterans of WWII act out, commit senseless brutality on civilians and other veterans, sometimes murder
--plot synopsis from IMDB: "A man is murdered, apparently by one of a group of soldiers just out of the army. But which one? And why?"
quote from the film:
"I used to be in the army. I copped out. I got my DD. My dishonorable discharge."
backpage:
UNEXPLODED ordnance left over from the Vietnam War has killed more than 42,000 people
--may take 100 years to clean up Vietnam at this rate
--no help forthcoming from U.S. military, no discussion of the genocide that was the U.S. intervention in Vietnam
facts & figures:
US forces used 15 million tonnes of bombs and ammunition during the Vietnam war. An estimated 800,000 tonnes of unexploded ordnance still contaminates 20 per cent of the country's area.
follow up: epidemic of suicides in the U.S. military
26 Marine suicides so far, at the halfway point, in 2009
--annual count feared to be greatest ever, by end of 2009
from the archives:
epitaph for this edition of "Truth in Recruiting"
Antiwar song for M*A*S*H blockbuster film earned $1.5 million dollars
The Tulsa Peace Fellowship Counter-Recruitment Update/Digest, for August 2009
lead story:
More female veterans are winding up homeless
VA resources strained; many are single parents
By Bryan Bender
Boston Globe / July 6, 2009
WASHINGTON - The number of female service members who have become homeless after leaving the military has jumped dramatically in recent years, according to new government estimates, presenting the Veterans Administration with a challenge as it struggles to accommodate the hundreds of thousands of returning veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan.
As more women serve in combat zones, the share of female veterans who end up homeless, while still relatively small at an estimated 6,500, has nearly doubled over the last decade, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs.
For younger veterans, it is even more pronounced: One out of every 10 homeless vets under the age of 45 is now a woman, the statistics show.
And unlike their male counterparts, many have the added burden of being single parents.
“Some of the first homeless vets that walked into our office were single moms,’’ said Paul Rieckhoff, executive director and founder of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. “When people think of homeless vets, they don’t think of a Hispanic mother and her kids. The new generation of veterans is made up of far more women.’’
Overall, female veterans are now between two and four times more likely to end up homeless than their civilian counterparts, according to the VA, most as a result of the same factors that contribute to homelessness among male veterans: mental trauma related to their military service and difficulty transitioning into the civilian economy.
Many of them are like Angela Peacock, a former Army sergeant who was diagnosed with PTSD when she returned from Iraq in 2004 and became addicted to pain-killers.
Later evicted from her apartment in Texas, she spent more than two years “couch-hopping’’ between friends and family before moving in as a squatter in an empty house in St. Louis.
“They could kick me out anytime they want,’’ Peacock said in an interview. “I have been clean for two and a half years and am working on getting my life back, but it doesn’t happen overnight.’’
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2009/07/06/mo...
Lyrics to the song "War Pigs"
War Pigs (1970), by Black Sabbath, Ozzy Osbourne on vocals
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtqy4DTHGqg
2,959,588 views on You Tube (check out the crowd at the end of the video clip)
Generals gathered in their masses,
just like witches at black masses.
Evil minds that plot destruction,
sorcerers of death's construction.
In the fields the bodies burning,
as the war machine keeps turning.
Death and hatred to mankind,
poisoning their brainwashed minds.
Oh lord, yeah!
Politicians hide themselves away.
They only started the war.
Why should they go out to fight?
They leave that role to the poor, yeah.
Time will tell on their power and might,
making war just for fun.
Treating people just like pawns in chess,
wait till their judgment day comes, yeah.
Now in darkness world stops turning,
ashes where the bodies burning.
No more War Pigs have the power,
Hand of God has struck the hour.
Day of judgment, God is calling,
on their knees the war pigs crawling.
Begging mercies for their sins,
Satan, laughing, spreads his wings.
Oh lord, yeah!
--Black Sabbath, War Pigs
"We killed the wrong pig."
~Winston Churchill, on the debacle that was the outcome of WWII, ushering in the Cold War
* The song was covered by The Flaming Lips at multiple concerts. Images of dead bodies and politicians (namely George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Condoleezza Rice) were displayed on a screen behind the band as they played. This version was subsequently recorded for their iTunes Originals session. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pY13dE3bqm8
The Tulsa Peace Fellowship Counter-Recruitment Update/Digest, for August 2009
page one:
Obama Wins A Battle against the Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex
by Jim Lobe, July 23, 2009
In a signal victory for President Barack Obama and Defense Secretary Robert Gates, the U.S. Senate voted Tuesday evening to end production of an advanced fighter jet that many independent military analysts have long considered a wasteful boondoggle.
The 58-40 vote to delete 1.75 billion dollars in funding to order seven more F-22 "Raptor" jet fighters as part of the 534-billion-dollar 2010 military authorization bill marked a major defeat for military contractors, particularly defense giants Lockheed Martin and Boeing, which have profited handsomely over the years from the plane’s production and have spared little expense in lobbying for its continuation.
And while battle over the plane’s fate is not yet over – the current version of the bill moving through the House of Representatives authorizes 369 million dollars for spare parts for 12 more planes after 2010 – a number of F-22 advocates admitted they face an uphill climb.
"I think it is a huge, huge victory for Obama and Gates and is a big step toward instituting a strategic shift within the Pentagon," wrote Max Bergmann, the deputy policy director of the National Security Network (NSN), on his blog for democracyarsenal.org.
"This vote was about whether the Pentagon would be able to institutionalize the lessons from Iraq and Afghanistan and finally move out of the Cold War strategic mindset that still dominates," he added.
"I’ve never see a White House lobby like they’ve lobbied on this issue," noted Sen. Saxby Chambliss, whose home state of Georgia hosts Lockheed’s main F-22 manufacturing plant and who had led the effort to retain the order for more planes in the funding bill.
While the price tag for the seven planes was relatively small compared to other weapons systems, such as a fleet of new VH-71 helicopters, several defense program, a new Navy destroyer, the Virginia class submarine, that the administration wants to curb or eliminate altogether, the F-22 is perhaps the most important symbol of the kind of changes Gates, in particular, has argued are necessary to deal with the full range of challenges the U.S. military is likely to face in the coming years.
Gates and independent military specialists contend that far too much of the defense budget – which makes up nearly half of total global military spending – is devoted to hi-tech weapons systems designed for warfare against major global and technologically advanced adversaries which currently do not exist. Too little, by contrast, has gone to more mundane weapons and equipment useful in unconventional conflicts, such as those in Iraq and Afghanistan.
As Gates said in a speech recently, Washington should no longer "design and buy – as we have the last 60 years – only the most technologically advanced versions of weapons to keep up with or stay ahead of another superpower adversary, especially one that imploded nearly a generation ago."
"We must break the old habit of adding layer upon layer of cost, complexity, and delay to systems that are so expensive and so elaborate that only a small number can be built, and that are then usable only in a narrow range of low-probability scenarios."
"It is time to draw the line on doing defense business as usual," he told the Economic Club of Chicago Thursday, adding that "the more they buy of stuff we don’t need, the less we have available for the stuff we do. It’s just as simple as that. It ain’t a complicated problem."
Developed in the latter part of the 1980’s, the stealth F-22 – each of which costs 350 million dollars — is the world’s most-advanced fighter jet, designed for high-altitude combat of the kind that was contemplated in the event of war with the former Soviet Union. A total of 187 have been built or are currently on order.
In its 20-plus year history, however, it has never seen actual combat. Worse, it has suffered from a host of technical problems, not least of which is the fact that for every hour it is airborne, it needs at least 30 hours on the ground at special maintenance facilities to ensure it can fly again.
Yet Congress, almost without debate, has continued to order new F-22s, primarily because the Air Force and Lockheed spread production of the plane – and the 25,000 direct and up to 70,000 indirect jobs dependent on it — across 44 of the 50 states, including Congressional districts whose representatives, including Democrats, hold key positions on the committees that authorize and appropriate money for the Pentagon.
As a result, the F-22 vote, like many votes affecting the interests of what former President Dwight Eisenhower denounced as the "military-industrial complex", was decided more by the plane’s role in providing jobs than in defending the country against actual threats.
That point was made effectively by none other than Obama’s Republican rival, Sen. John McCain, who has long opposed the F-22.
"The fact that the F-22 program is no longer… wanted by the most senior civilian and uniformed officials in the Pentagon — exercising their best professional judgment — and that it is simply no longer affordable cannot be disputed," he said during the debate that preceded the vote.
McCain was one of 15 Republicans who backed Obama on the vote, while 14 Democrats, including veteran doves, such as California Sens. Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein, and Washington State Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell voted against him. Lockheed and Boeing employ more people in California and Washington, respectively.
If the House retains its authorization for F-22 spare parts, it will have to be reconciled with the Senate version, so significant battles over the plane’s fate – including its possible resurrection through appropriations legislation — still loom. But Obama’s victory gives him the momentum.
(Inter Press Service)
http://original.antiwar.com/lobe/2009/07/22/obama-wins-big-victory-...
Reaction from the U.S. House Representative, Ron Paul (R-TX):
Ron Paul said that President Obama’s decision to cancel the F-22 fighter jet program was “a first very very minor step … and I applaud Obama for that. But we don’t need just one [defense project] removed, we need to change our foreign policy, then we could afford the health care that is necessary."
And to finance health reform, Paul would like to see the US end its overseas military engagements. “I would cut from overseas spending, I would cut from these trillions and trillions of dollars that we have spent over the years and bring our troops home so that we can finance it [health care].”
http://rawstory.com/08/news/2009/07/22/ron-paul-cut-overseas-spendi...
Remedy proposed to Pentagon's lax enforcement of rule against white supremacists in U.S. armed forces
quote:
“Military personnel must reject participation in organizations that espouse supremacist causes. Active participation, such as publicly demonstrating or rallying, fund raising, recruiting and training members, organizing or leading such organizations, or otherwise engaging in activities in relation to such organizations ... that are viewed by command to be detrimental to the good order, discipline, or mission accomplishment of the unit, is incompatible with Military Service, and is, therefore, prohibited.”
~a Defense Department directive issued in 1996
Last month, Rep. Alcee Hastings, D-Fla., attached an amendment to the 2010 defense authorization bill that would expressly ban the “recruitment, enlistment or retention” of anyone tied to an extremist group.
“The problem is that in many instances, recruiters and commanding officers are looking the other way,” Hastings said in a statement. “The United States Government should not be providing the highest quality of military training in the world to individuals who hope to use that training in a ‘race war’ or in an effort to overthrow the United States Government.”
Speaking to the House and Senate committees overseeing the armed forces, July 2009, Morris Dees said: “In the wake of several high-profile murders by extremists of the radical right, we urge your committees to investigate the threat posed by racial extremists who may be serving in the military to ensure that our armed forces are not inadvertently training future domestic terrorists.”Dees is SPLC co-founder and chief trial counsel for the Southern Poverty Law Center, the Montgomery, Ala.-based watchdog group that tracks extremist hate groups.
In 2006, the SPLC released a report asserting that “thousands” of active-duty troops in the U.S. Armed Forces could have hate group affiliations. The law center said that some military officers conceded that recruitment and retention pressures forced them to look the other way when presented with overwhelming evidence of hate group membership.
Later, the FBI said it suspected hundreds of servicemembers had been recruited into extremist groups.
Last November, the SPLC, feeling its warnings to former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had been ignored, urged the current secretary, Robert Gates, to revisit the issue.
“Since we issued our 2006 report, the problem may have worsened,” SPLC President Richard Cohen wrote to Gates.
By this spring, a Department of Homeland Security report said law enforcement groups should beware of extremists coming out of military duty or groups trying to recruit susceptible veterans for their combat skills.
sources:
http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=63650
featured book review:
When in war, why bomb the innocent?
Historians argue that bombing civilians is a tragic and virtually ineffective strategy
Sunday, June 28, 2009
By Jeff Kingston
BOMBING CIVILIANS: A Twentieth Century History. Edited by Yuki Tanaka and Marilyn Young. New York: The New Press, 2009, 291 pp. $30 (cloth)
How one feels about what one is reading can differ depending on where and when. Reading these essays while boarding a flight from Tokyo, transiting Hanoi and then arriving in Laos — all places that have been subjected to extensive U.S. bombing — is to feel the long arm of history tug at one's conscience.
Some monks I met in Luang Prabang (Laos) recounted a recent journey to the Plain of Jars, a World Heritage sight. They said there are carefully marked paths with signs warning not to wander off because of unexploded ordnance in the area — cluster bombs dropped by the United States on a neutral country in a secret war that never happened. Estimates suggest that this insidious legacy of the bombings, which ended in the 1970s, has resulted in more than 20,000 Laotian casualties including many maimed children.
Rather than accusing, seeking vengeance or accountability, the monks calmly praised the very limited mine clearing efforts of U.S. veterans. They said they don't feel anger; it was all a long time ago and would be of little importance if not for the continuing dangers.
This unsought absolution stirs a sense of incredulity about why the U.S. government has done so little to help a desperately poor country that it dragged into the maelstrom of the Vietnam War. This malign neglect also extends to Vietnam, where people continue to suffer from the dioxin residue left behind by extensive spraying of Agent Orange during the war
Mark Selden argues that the U.S. has much to answer for in the indiscriminate bombing of civilians in Japan. We learn that Japan crossed that bridge itself in 1932 with the bombing of Shanghai, and Tetsuo Maeda details Japan's bombing campaign against Congquing's civilians from 1938.
Selden and colleagues are not out to exonerate the Japanese or privilege their suffering over what they inflicted on others. He is reminding us, though, that the U.S. systematically firebombed and gutted 66 Japanese cities in 1945 under flimsy excuses that these were primarily military targets.
The intention, however, was not solely a matter of zapping Japan's factories and infrastructure. This aerial terror amounted to vengeance, payback for Pearl Harbor and mistreatment of prisoners of war, and was intended to inflict as much suffering on the civilian populace as possible.
However much this campaign of "terror bombing" disrupted life and demoralized the people, Japan's military leaders were undaunted as they persisted in gambling on a decisive battle. For this, there was a price to be paid and, as in most modern conflicts, civilians paid the highest price. The firebombing of Tokyo alone killed an estimated 100,000 people. The total firebombing tally is roughly 300,000 plus 400,000 wounded (these figures exclude Hiroshima and Nagasaki).
Selden reminds us that the comforting dominant narrative of the Good War (aka World War II) averts our eyes from the grim realities of these crimes against humanity and the ongoing evasion of accountability.
Selden believes the failure to hold the victors accountable for crimes is crucial to understanding why "Mass murder of civilians has been central to all subsequent U.S. wars." He concludes that "the pre-eminence of strategic bombing as quintessential to the American way of war" persists even though it has not been effective.
Marilyn Young's essay explores the fallacy that bombing of civilians is effective, a mistaken assumption that has led to horrific humanitarian consequences for little strategic gain.
Yuki Tanaka traces the early history of aerial bombing of civilians from World War I. In the aftermath, the battered British found such bombing an economical way to maintain imperial interests. The first campaign was against Afghanistan in 1919 followed by Somaliland and then far more extensively in Iraq during the 1920s and 1930s.
In Iraq, civilian casualties were high and intentional as part of a campaign to demoralize the population. The British, and subsequently the Italians in Ethiopia, were explicitly racist in justifying indiscriminate bombing of those they viewed as "uncivilized," while this is implicit among contemporary avatars. The efficacy of this strategy remained unquestioned even though the results were decidedly mixed.
Tsuyoshi Hasegawa asks whether the atomic bombings were justified and were the key to Japan's surrender; he gives an unequivocal no on both counts. He argues that Truman used the atomic bomb in an effort to secure Japan's surrender before Stalin could enter the war and impose a joint occupation.
In his view, the decision to surrender was not due mainly to the atomic bombings, but rather to the Soviet entry into the war as well as concerns about preservation of the monarchy.
How can the international community hold any country accountable if the worst perpetrators get immunity?
byline: Jeff Kingston is Director of Asian Studies at Temple University, Japan campus.
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fb20090628a1.html
The Tulsa Peace Fellowship Counter-Recruitment Update/Digest, for August 2009
page two:
Case of autistic Marine brings recruiting problems to the forefront
Faced with quotas, a few recruiters are taking shortcuts that allow those unfit for service into the military.
By Tony Perry
July 6, 2009
Reporting from San Diego -- A few days after he arrived at boot camp here, Joshua Fry no longer wanted to be a Marine.
He was confused by the orders drill instructors shouted at him. He was caught stealing peanut butter from the chow hall. He urinated in his canteen. He talked back to the drill instructors. He refused to shave.
Finally, he set out toward the main gate as if to head home. He was blocked, but now he had the chance to tell his superiors a secret: He was autistic. Fry figured this admission would persuade the Marines to let him return to the group home in Irvine for disturbed young adults where he was living when he enlisted.
Instead, he was sent back to Platoon 1021, Company B. The drill instructors became more helpful, and in April 2008 he finished the grueling 11-week regimen and was sent to Camp Pendleton for infantry training.
Within weeks he was under arrest for desertion and possession of child pornography.
Documents in Fry's court-martial case detail a troubled upbringing and a Marine career that was both improbable and misbegotten.
But far from being a routine instance of a young man unable to adjust to military life, the Fry case has exposed an awkward issue for the Marines and other military services: Recruiters sometimes take ethical shortcuts to make their quotas at a time when Americans have tired of the nation's wars and finding recruits is difficult.
According to court documents, Fry's recruiter knew he was autistic. The Marine Corps is investigating the recruiter's conduct.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-marine-autism6-2009jul06,0,...
Oklahoma veterans sue Halliburton, KBR
They claim the companies exposed soldiers to toxic smoke in Iraq and Afghanistan.
By DAVID HARPER World Staff Writer
Published: 7/18/2009
Two Oklahoma veterans of the war in Iraq are suing Halliburton Co. and KBR Inc., saying the companies "callously exposed and continue to expose soldiers and others to toxic smoke, ash and fumes" in Iraq and Afghanistan.
David Green of Miami, Okla., and Nick Daniel Heisler of Lawton say in the lawsuit, filed in federal court in Tulsa, that they are seeking "redress for American soldiers and others deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan who were poisoned" by the companies.
O'Neil said Friday that about 20 deaths have resulted from the defendants' actions.
He declined to estimate the number of people who have been sickened or injured, saying that total should become more clear during the discovery process.
A motion to certify the cases as a class-action lawsuit eventually will be filed, O'Neil said.
The majority of the cases involve smoke-related injuries from burn pits.
O'Neil said motions have been made to transfer the cases to one federal court district — either in Maryland or Florida — for consolidated pretrial discovery.
http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?subjectid=11&articl...
Casualties of War, Part I:
The hell of war comes home
July 26, 2009
DAVE PHILIPPS
THE GAZETTE
Before the murders started, Anthony Marquez’s mom dialed his sergeant at Fort Carson to warn that her son was poised to kill.
It was February 2006, and the 21-year-old soldier had not been the same since being wounded and coming home from Iraq eight months before. He had violent outbursts and thrashing nightmares. He was devouring pain pills and drinking too much. He always packed a gun.
“It was a dangerous combination. I told them he was a walking time bomb,” said his mother, Teresa Hernandez.
His sergeant told her there was nothing he could do. Then, she said, he started taunting her son, saying things like, “Your mommy called. She says you are going crazy.”
Eight months later, the time bomb exploded when her son used a stun gun to repeatedly shock a small-time drug dealer in Widefield over an ounce of marijuana, then shot him through the heart.
Marquez was the first infantry soldier in his brigade to murder someone after returning from Iraq. But he wasn’t the last.
Back home, 10 of its infantrymen have been arrested and accused of murder, attempted murder or manslaughter since 2006. Others have committed suicide, or tried to.
Soldiers say the torture and killing of Iraqi civilians lurked in the ranks. And when these soldiers came home to Colorado Springs suffering the emotional wounds of combat, soldiers say, some were ignored, some were neglected, some were thrown away and some were punished.
Some kept killing — this time in Colorado Springs.
Many of those soldiers are now behind bars.
This month, Fort Carson released a 126-page report by a task force of behavioral-health and Army professionals who looked for common threads in the soldiers’ crimes.
Marquez, who was arrested before the latest programs were created, said he would never have pulled the trigger if he had not gone to Iraq.
“If I was just a guy off the street, I might have hesitated to shoot,” Marquez said this spring as he sat in the Bent County Correctional Facility, where he is serving 30 years. “But after Iraq, it was just natural.”
More killing by more soldiers followed.
In August 2007, Louis Bressler, 24, robbed and shot a soldier he picked up on a street in Colorado Springs.
In December 2007, Bressler and fellow soldiers Bruce Bastien Jr., 21, and Kenneth Eastridge, 24, left the bullet-riddled body of a soldier from their unit on a west-side street.
In May and June 2008, police say Rudolfo Torres-Gandarilla, 20, and Jomar Falu-Vives, 23, drove around with an assault rifle, randomly shooting people.
In September 2008, police say John Needham, 25, beat a former girlfriend to death.
Most of the killers were from a single 500-soldier unit within the brigade called the 2nd Battalion, 12th Infantry Regiment.
Soldiers from other units at Fort Carson have committed crimes after deployments — military bookings at the El Paso County jail have tripled since the start of the Iraq war — but no other unit has a record as bad as the soldiers of the 4th Brigade.
In a one-year period from the fall of 2007 to the fall of 2008, the murder rate for the 500 Lethal Warriors was 114 times the rate for Colorado Springs.
The killings are only the headline-grabbing tip of a much broader pyramid of crime. Since 2005, the brigade’s returning soldiers have been involved in brawls, beatings, rapes, DUIs, drug deals, domestic violence, shootings, stabbings, kidnapping and suicides.
http://www.gazette.com/articles/iframe-59065-eastridge-audio.html
The Tulsa Peace Fellowship Counter-Recruitment Update/Digest, for August 2009
backpage
Leftover firearms killed 42,000 civilians since end of Vietnam War
June 29, 2009
HANOI - UNEXPLODED ordnance left over from the Vietnam War has killed more than 42,000 people in the country since the conflict ended more than three decades ago, and deadly accidents continue daily, a senior military official said on Monday.
US forces used 15 million tonnes of bombs and ammunition during the war and an estimated 800,000 tonnes of unexploded ordnance still contaminates 20 per cent of the country's area, Vice Defence Minister Senior Lieutenant General Nguyen Huy Hieu wrote in the state-run People's Army newspaper.
He said it may take more than 100 years to clear the contaminated area.
In addition to the deaths, some 62,000 people have been injured since the end of the war in 1975, and tens of thousands of them are permanently disabled, he said, adding that the ordnance has also caused big economic losses to Vietnam.
Mr Hieu said the government, helped with funds from international organisations and countries including the United States, has cleared more than 3 per cent of the contaminated area. It may cost tens of billions of dollars to finish the job, he said.
Mr Hieu's figures apparently did not include casualties in neighbouring Laos and Cambodia, which were also heavily bombed by the United States during the conflict and where thousands of people have also died in ordnance accidents since 1975.
http://www.straitstimes.com/Breaking%2BNews/SE%2BAsia/Story/STIStor...
26 Marine suicides so far in 2009
By Dan Lamothe - Staff writer
Tuesday Jul 28, 2009
The Corps recorded 26 suspected or confirmed suicides in the first half of 2009 despite broad-based efforts introduced to reduce the number of Marines taking their own life, officials said.
The 26 dead Marines put the Corps on pace for 52 in 2009, which would be the most since the beginning of the Iraq war in 2003.
Last year, the Corps lost 42 Marines to confirmed or suspected suicides, up from 25 in 2006 and 33 in 2007. The recent numbers have alarmed Marine leadership, prompting additional “all-hands” prevention training in March that included videos made by commanders, a slideshow outlining recent statistics and an overview of warning signs shown by Marines at risk of killing themselves.
“Peer groups have to recognize the signs at ankle level, not chest level,” said Sgt. Maj. Michael Timmerman, the senior enlisted adviser with the Personal and Family Readiness Division at Marine Corps headquarters.
Kent said he wants NCOs to feel empowered to report that a Marine in turmoil may be considering suicide, but he believes senior enlisted leadership and officers also need to be actively involved.
http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/2009/07/marine_suicide_072709w/
epitaph for this addition of "Truth in Recruiting"
sidebar:
M*A*S*H, the movie (Robert Altman, USA, 1970), featured the song "Suicide Is Painless"
music by Johnny Mandel and lyrics by Mike Altman, the director's 14-year-old son.
"A brave man once requested me
to answer questions that are key
is it to be or not to be
and I replied 'oh why ask me?'"
Ten years after the film's release, the song reached number one in the UK charts. The television show used an instrumental version of the song as its theme music.
Complete lyrics and audio track available online
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gO7uemm6Yo
Tulsa Peace Fellowship's counter-recruitment update/digest for August 2009
masthead
The website for the Tulsa Peace Fellowship is:
www.tulsapeacefellowship.org
TPF meets monthly @ Peace House in Tulsa
inside the Unitarian Universalist church at 1314 N. Greenwood Ave, in Tulsa, close to corner of Pine & Greenwood, just north of the OSU-Tulsa campus
info for TPF counter-recruitment-- contact by phone 918 906 0828
The next regular meeting of the Fellowship will be held
on Thursday, August 6 2009, 6:15 PM – 7:30 PM
The information provided in this digest/update herein is for non-profit use only, according to "fair use" doctrine. Copyright and all commercial exploitation rights remain with the various authors/publishers cited above.
further information
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The Tulsa Peace Fellowship's Counter-Recruitment Update/Digest, for August 2009
lead story:
More female veterans are winding up homeless
--factors that contribute to homelessness include mental trauma related to their military service and difficulty transitioning into the civilian economy
--many among homeless female veterans are single parents to boot
quote:
"Plenty of rich folks wants to fight. Give them the guns."
~Woody Guthrie
from the archives:
Lyrics to the song "War Pigs," by Black Sabbath (1978)
--an anti-war anthem, it singles out the poverty draft
--song was covered by The Flaming Lips, a band formed in Oklahoma City (in 1983) at a recent appearance
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pY13dE3bqm8
page one:
file under: providing a check and a balance against the Military-Industrial-Congressional complex
Funding pulled from outdated fighter plane designed to fight 'Cold War': $1.75 billion saved
--The F-22 fighter is on the chopping block: plans suspended to build 7 more unneeded planes
--Designed to fight the 'Cold War,' which ended 20 years ago, each plane costs $350 million each; some still 'on order' (purchase order not yet rescinded)
--A major victory is declared for the Obama Administration against entrenched porkbarrelling, in on-going battle against corporate-feeding on the U.S. fisc by the so-called defense industry
quote:
"If we can't get this right, what on earth can we get right?"
~U.S. Defence Secretary Robert Gates, a Republican holdover from the previous administration
facts & figures:
For every hour it is airborne, the F-22 Cold War fighter plane needs at least 30 hours on the ground at special maintenance facilities to ensure it can fly again. The F-22 is called a 'wasteful boondoggle' by military analysts.
A total of 187 have been built or are currently on order, as per previous funding bills from earlier administrations. The warplane never saw battle, and likely never will.
Remedy proposed to Pentagon's lax enforcement of its own rule against white supremacists in U.S. armed forces
--extremist tattoos such as a swastika disqualify an applicant for enlistment, identifying the applicant as a member of a hate group
did you know...?
Pentagon regulations prohibit racist extremism in the ranks. White supremacists need not apply.
featured book review:
When in war, why bomb the innocent?
--Historians argue that bombing civilians is a tragic and virtually ineffective strategy
quote, from the archives:
“The goddamned bombing campaign,’’ he screamed, “it’s been worth nothing, it’s done nothing, they’ve dropped more bombs than in all of Europe in all of World War II, and it hasn’t done a (expletive deleted) thing!’’
~Robert S. McNamara, former Secretary of Defense, at his last top-level meeting, going ballistic. He became unhinged when he was proven wrong about his pet theory and carpet bombing during the Vietnam War failed to accomplish any military purpose
analysis:
The Permanent War Economy: Parasitic Spending by the Pentagon Ruins U.S. Economy
facts:
Over a period of two years, the average U.S. motorist uses about as much fuel as does a single F-16 training jet in less than an hour.
The Abrams tank uses up 3.8 gallons of fuel in order to travel a single mile.
The Pentagon’s energy use in a single year could power all U.S. mass transit systems for nearly 14 years.
source: Victor W. Sidel, “The Impact of Military Preparedness and Militarism on War and the Environment,” in Austin and Bruch, eds., The Environmental Consequences of War, Cambridge University Press, 2000, page 441.
page two:
Case of Autistic Marine Brings Recruiting Problems to the Forefront
--Faced with quotas, recruiters are taking shortcuts that allow those unfit for service into the military.
--The Marine Corps is investigating the recruiter's conduct.
Oklahoma Veterans Sue Halliburton, KBR
--They claim the companies exposed soldiers to toxic smoke in Iraq and Afghanistan.
--Story in the Tulsa World
soldiers committing murders States-side:
Casualties of War, Part I: The Hell of War Comes Home
--follow up on Iraq veterans losing their moral compass, when among U.S. civilians
--recently demobilized American soldiers commit various felonies, including murder
from the archives:
The 1947 film noir Crossfire (directed by Edward Dmytryk) addressed PTSD post-WWII
--recently demobilized American soldiers experience malaise, shell shock, problems with re-entry into civilian life
--film addresses the difficulty transitioning into the civilian economy, after deployment overseas
--veterans of WWII act out, commit senseless brutality on civilians and other veterans, sometimes murder
--plot synopsis from IMDB: "A man is murdered, apparently by one of a group of soldiers just out of the army. But which one? And why?"
quote from the film:
"I used to be in the army. I copped out. I got my DD. My dishonorable discharge."
backpage:
UNEXPLODED ordnance left over from the Vietnam War has killed more than 42,000 people
--may take 100 years to clean up Vietnam at this rate
--no help forthcoming from U.S. military, no discussion of the genocide that was the U.S. intervention in Vietnam
facts & figures:
US forces used 15 million tonnes of bombs and ammunition during the Vietnam war. An estimated 800,000 tonnes of unexploded ordnance still contaminates 20 per cent of the country's area.
follow up: epidemic of suicides in the U.S. military
26 Marine suicides so far, at the halfway point, in 2009
--annual count feared to be greatest ever, by end of 2009
from the archives:
epitaph for this edition of "Truth in Recruiting"
Antiwar song for M*A*S*H blockbuster film earned $1.5 million dollars
The Tulsa Peace Fellowship Counter-Recruitment Update/Digest, for August 2009
lead story:
More female veterans are winding up homeless
VA resources strained; many are single parents
By Bryan Bender
Boston Globe / July 6, 2009
WASHINGTON - The number of female service members who have become homeless after leaving the military has jumped dramatically in recent years, according to new government estimates, presenting the Veterans Administration with a challenge as it struggles to accommodate the hundreds of thousands of returning veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan.
As more women serve in combat zones, the share of female veterans who end up homeless, while still relatively small at an estimated 6,500, has nearly doubled over the last decade, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs.
For younger veterans, it is even more pronounced: One out of every 10 homeless vets under the age of 45 is now a woman, the statistics show.
And unlike their male counterparts, many have the added burden of being single parents.
“Some of the first homeless vets that walked into our office were single moms,’’ said Paul Rieckhoff, executive director and founder of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. “When people think of homeless vets, they don’t think of a Hispanic mother and her kids. The new generation of veterans is made up of far more women.’’
Overall, female veterans are now between two and four times more likely to end up homeless than their civilian counterparts, according to the VA, most as a result of the same factors that contribute to homelessness among male veterans: mental trauma related to their military service and difficulty transitioning into the civilian economy.
Many of them are like Angela Peacock, a former Army sergeant who was diagnosed with PTSD when she returned from Iraq in 2004 and became addicted to pain-killers.
Later evicted from her apartment in Texas, she spent more than two years “couch-hopping’’ between friends and family before moving in as a squatter in an empty house in St. Louis.
“They could kick me out anytime they want,’’ Peacock said in an interview. “I have been clean for two and a half years and am working on getting my life back, but it doesn’t happen overnight.’’
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2009/07/06/mo...
Lyrics to the song "War Pigs"
War Pigs (1970), by Black Sabbath, Ozzy Osbourne on vocals
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtqy4DTHGqg
2,959,588 views on You Tube (check out the crowd at the end of the video clip)
Generals gathered in their masses,
just like witches at black masses.
Evil minds that plot destruction,
sorcerers of death's construction.
In the fields the bodies burning,
as the war machine keeps turning.
Death and hatred to mankind,
poisoning their brainwashed minds.
Oh lord, yeah!
Politicians hide themselves away.
They only started the war.
Why should they go out to fight?
They leave that role to the poor, yeah.
Time will tell on their power and might,
making war just for fun.
Treating people just like pawns in chess,
wait till their judgment day comes, yeah.
Now in darkness world stops turning,
ashes where the bodies burning.
No more War Pigs have the power,
Hand of God has struck the hour.
Day of judgment, God is calling,
on their knees the war pigs crawling.
Begging mercies for their sins,
Satan, laughing, spreads his wings.
Oh lord, yeah!
--Black Sabbath, War Pigs
"We killed the wrong pig."
~Winston Churchill, on the debacle that was the outcome of WWII, ushering in the Cold War
* The song was covered by The Flaming Lips at multiple concerts. Images of dead bodies and politicians (namely George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Condoleezza Rice) were displayed on a screen behind the band as they played. This version was subsequently recorded for their iTunes Originals session. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pY13dE3bqm8
The Tulsa Peace Fellowship Counter-Recruitment Update/Digest, for August 2009
page one:
Obama Wins A Battle against the Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex
by Jim Lobe, July 23, 2009
In a signal victory for President Barack Obama and Defense Secretary Robert Gates, the U.S. Senate voted Tuesday evening to end production of an advanced fighter jet that many independent military analysts have long considered a wasteful boondoggle.
The 58-40 vote to delete 1.75 billion dollars in funding to order seven more F-22 "Raptor" jet fighters as part of the 534-billion-dollar 2010 military authorization bill marked a major defeat for military contractors, particularly defense giants Lockheed Martin and Boeing, which have profited handsomely over the years from the plane’s production and have spared little expense in lobbying for its continuation.
And while battle over the plane’s fate is not yet over – the current version of the bill moving through the House of Representatives authorizes 369 million dollars for spare parts for 12 more planes after 2010 – a number of F-22 advocates admitted they face an uphill climb.
"I think it is a huge, huge victory for Obama and Gates and is a big step toward instituting a strategic shift within the Pentagon," wrote Max Bergmann, the deputy policy director of the National Security Network (NSN), on his blog for democracyarsenal.org.
"This vote was about whether the Pentagon would be able to institutionalize the lessons from Iraq and Afghanistan and finally move out of the Cold War strategic mindset that still dominates," he added.
"I’ve never see a White House lobby like they’ve lobbied on this issue," noted Sen. Saxby Chambliss, whose home state of Georgia hosts Lockheed’s main F-22 manufacturing plant and who had led the effort to retain the order for more planes in the funding bill.
While the price tag for the seven planes was relatively small compared to other weapons systems, such as a fleet of new VH-71 helicopters, several defense program, a new Navy destroyer, the Virginia class submarine, that the administration wants to curb or eliminate altogether, the F-22 is perhaps the most important symbol of the kind of changes Gates, in particular, has argued are necessary to deal with the full range of challenges the U.S. military is likely to face in the coming years.
Gates and independent military specialists contend that far too much of the defense budget – which makes up nearly half of total global military spending – is devoted to hi-tech weapons systems designed for warfare against major global and technologically advanced adversaries which currently do not exist. Too little, by contrast, has gone to more mundane weapons and equipment useful in unconventional conflicts, such as those in Iraq and Afghanistan.
As Gates said in a speech recently, Washington should no longer "design and buy – as we have the last 60 years – only the most technologically advanced versions of weapons to keep up with or stay ahead of another superpower adversary, especially one that imploded nearly a generation ago."
"We must break the old habit of adding layer upon layer of cost, complexity, and delay to systems that are so expensive and so elaborate that only a small number can be built, and that are then usable only in a narrow range of low-probability scenarios."
"It is time to draw the line on doing defense business as usual," he told the Economic Club of Chicago Thursday, adding that "the more they buy of stuff we don’t need, the less we have available for the stuff we do. It’s just as simple as that. It ain’t a complicated problem."
Developed in the latter part of the 1980’s, the stealth F-22 – each of which costs 350 million dollars — is the world’s most-advanced fighter jet, designed for high-altitude combat of the kind that was contemplated in the event of war with the former Soviet Union. A total of 187 have been built or are currently on order.
In its 20-plus year history, however, it has never seen actual combat. Worse, it has suffered from a host of technical problems, not least of which is the fact that for every hour it is airborne, it needs at least 30 hours on the ground at special maintenance facilities to ensure it can fly again.
Yet Congress, almost without debate, has continued to order new F-22s, primarily because the Air Force and Lockheed spread production of the plane – and the 25,000 direct and up to 70,000 indirect jobs dependent on it — across 44 of the 50 states, including Congressional districts whose representatives, including Democrats, hold key positions on the committees that authorize and appropriate money for the Pentagon.
As a result, the F-22 vote, like many votes affecting the interests of what former President Dwight Eisenhower denounced as the "military-industrial complex", was decided more by the plane’s role in providing jobs than in defending the country against actual threats.
That point was made effectively by none other than Obama’s Republican rival, Sen. John McCain, who has long opposed the F-22.
"The fact that the F-22 program is no longer… wanted by the most senior civilian and uniformed officials in the Pentagon — exercising their best professional judgment — and that it is simply no longer affordable cannot be disputed," he said during the debate that preceded the vote.
McCain was one of 15 Republicans who backed Obama on the vote, while 14 Democrats, including veteran doves, such as California Sens. Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein, and Washington State Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell voted against him. Lockheed and Boeing employ more people in California and Washington, respectively.
If the House retains its authorization for F-22 spare parts, it will have to be reconciled with the Senate version, so significant battles over the plane’s fate – including its possible resurrection through appropriations legislation — still loom. But Obama’s victory gives him the momentum.
(Inter Press Service)
http://original.antiwar.com/lobe/2009/07/22/obama-wins-big-victory-...
Reaction from the U.S. House Representative, Ron Paul (R-TX):
Ron Paul said that President Obama’s decision to cancel the F-22 fighter jet program was “a first very very minor step … and I applaud Obama for that. But we don’t need just one [defense project] removed, we need to change our foreign policy, then we could afford the health care that is necessary."
And to finance health reform, Paul would like to see the US end its overseas military engagements. “I would cut from overseas spending, I would cut from these trillions and trillions of dollars that we have spent over the years and bring our troops home so that we can finance it [health care].”
http://rawstory.com/08/news/2009/07/22/ron-paul-cut-overseas-spendi...
Remedy proposed to Pentagon's lax enforcement of rule against white supremacists in U.S. armed forces
quote:
“Military personnel must reject participation in organizations that espouse supremacist causes. Active participation, such as publicly demonstrating or rallying, fund raising, recruiting and training members, organizing or leading such organizations, or otherwise engaging in activities in relation to such organizations ... that are viewed by command to be detrimental to the good order, discipline, or mission accomplishment of the unit, is incompatible with Military Service, and is, therefore, prohibited.”
~a Defense Department directive issued in 1996
Last month, Rep. Alcee Hastings, D-Fla., attached an amendment to the 2010 defense authorization bill that would expressly ban the “recruitment, enlistment or retention” of anyone tied to an extremist group.
“The problem is that in many instances, recruiters and commanding officers are looking the other way,” Hastings said in a statement. “The United States Government should not be providing the highest quality of military training in the world to individuals who hope to use that training in a ‘race war’ or in an effort to overthrow the United States Government.”
Speaking to the House and Senate committees overseeing the armed forces, July 2009, Morris Dees said: “In the wake of several high-profile murders by extremists of the radical right, we urge your committees to investigate the threat posed by racial extremists who may be serving in the military to ensure that our armed forces are not inadvertently training future domestic terrorists.”Dees is SPLC co-founder and chief trial counsel for the Southern Poverty Law Center, the Montgomery, Ala.-based watchdog group that tracks extremist hate groups.
In 2006, the SPLC released a report asserting that “thousands” of active-duty troops in the U.S. Armed Forces could have hate group affiliations. The law center said that some military officers conceded that recruitment and retention pressures forced them to look the other way when presented with overwhelming evidence of hate group membership.
Later, the FBI said it suspected hundreds of servicemembers had been recruited into extremist groups.
Last November, the SPLC, feeling its warnings to former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had been ignored, urged the current secretary, Robert Gates, to revisit the issue.
“Since we issued our 2006 report, the problem may have worsened,” SPLC President Richard Cohen wrote to Gates.
By this spring, a Department of Homeland Security report said law enforcement groups should beware of extremists coming out of military duty or groups trying to recruit susceptible veterans for their combat skills.
sources:
http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=63650
featured book review:
When in war, why bomb the innocent?
Historians argue that bombing civilians is a tragic and virtually ineffective strategy
Sunday, June 28, 2009
By Jeff Kingston
BOMBING CIVILIANS: A Twentieth Century History. Edited by Yuki Tanaka and Marilyn Young. New York: The New Press, 2009, 291 pp. $30 (cloth)
How one feels about what one is reading can differ depending on where and when. Reading these essays while boarding a flight from Tokyo, transiting Hanoi and then arriving in Laos — all places that have been subjected to extensive U.S. bombing — is to feel the long arm of history tug at one's conscience.
Some monks I met in Luang Prabang (Laos) recounted a recent journey to the Plain of Jars, a World Heritage sight. They said there are carefully marked paths with signs warning not to wander off because of unexploded ordnance in the area — cluster bombs dropped by the United States on a neutral country in a secret war that never happened. Estimates suggest that this insidious legacy of the bombings, which ended in the 1970s, has resulted in more than 20,000 Laotian casualties including many maimed children.
Rather than accusing, seeking vengeance or accountability, the monks calmly praised the very limited mine clearing efforts of U.S. veterans. They said they don't feel anger; it was all a long time ago and would be of little importance if not for the continuing dangers.
This unsought absolution stirs a sense of incredulity about why the U.S. government has done so little to help a desperately poor country that it dragged into the maelstrom of the Vietnam War. This malign neglect also extends to Vietnam, where people continue to suffer from the dioxin residue left behind by extensive spraying of Agent Orange during the war
Mark Selden argues that the U.S. has much to answer for in the indiscriminate bombing of civilians in Japan. We learn that Japan crossed that bridge itself in 1932 with the bombing of Shanghai, and Tetsuo Maeda details Japan's bombing campaign against Congquing's civilians from 1938.
Selden and colleagues are not out to exonerate the Japanese or privilege their suffering over what they inflicted on others. He is reminding us, though, that the U.S. systematically firebombed and gutted 66 Japanese cities in 1945 under flimsy excuses that these were primarily military targets.
The intention, however, was not solely a matter of zapping Japan's factories and infrastructure. This aerial terror amounted to vengeance, payback for Pearl Harbor and mistreatment of prisoners of war, and was intended to inflict as much suffering on the civilian populace as possible.
However much this campaign of "terror bombing" disrupted life and demoralized the people, Japan's military leaders were undaunted as they persisted in gambling on a decisive battle. For this, there was a price to be paid and, as in most modern conflicts, civilians paid the highest price. The firebombing of Tokyo alone killed an estimated 100,000 people. The total firebombing tally is roughly 300,000 plus 400,000 wounded (these figures exclude Hiroshima and Nagasaki).
Selden reminds us that the comforting dominant narrative of the Good War (aka World War II) averts our eyes from the grim realities of these crimes against humanity and the ongoing evasion of accountability.
Selden believes the failure to hold the victors accountable for crimes is crucial to understanding why "Mass murder of civilians has been central to all subsequent U.S. wars." He concludes that "the pre-eminence of strategic bombing as quintessential to the American way of war" persists even though it has not been effective.
Marilyn Young's essay explores the fallacy that bombing of civilians is effective, a mistaken assumption that has led to horrific humanitarian consequences for little strategic gain.
Yuki Tanaka traces the early history of aerial bombing of civilians from World War I. In the aftermath, the battered British found such bombing an economical way to maintain imperial interests. The first campaign was against Afghanistan in 1919 followed by Somaliland and then far more extensively in Iraq during the 1920s and 1930s.
In Iraq, civilian casualties were high and intentional as part of a campaign to demoralize the population. The British, and subsequently the Italians in Ethiopia, were explicitly racist in justifying indiscriminate bombing of those they viewed as "uncivilized," while this is implicit among contemporary avatars. The efficacy of this strategy remained unquestioned even though the results were decidedly mixed.
Tsuyoshi Hasegawa asks whether the atomic bombings were justified and were the key to Japan's surrender; he gives an unequivocal no on both counts. He argues that Truman used the atomic bomb in an effort to secure Japan's surrender before Stalin could enter the war and impose a joint occupation.
In his view, the decision to surrender was not due mainly to the atomic bombings, but rather to the Soviet entry into the war as well as concerns about preservation of the monarchy.
How can the international community hold any country accountable if the worst perpetrators get immunity?
byline: Jeff Kingston is Director of Asian Studies at Temple University, Japan campus.
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fb20090628a1.html
The Tulsa Peace Fellowship Counter-Recruitment Update/Digest, for August 2009
page two:
Case of autistic Marine brings recruiting problems to the forefront
Faced with quotas, a few recruiters are taking shortcuts that allow those unfit for service into the military.
By Tony Perry
July 6, 2009
Reporting from San Diego -- A few days after he arrived at boot camp here, Joshua Fry no longer wanted to be a Marine.
He was confused by the orders drill instructors shouted at him. He was caught stealing peanut butter from the chow hall. He urinated in his canteen. He talked back to the drill instructors. He refused to shave.
Finally, he set out toward the main gate as if to head home. He was blocked, but now he had the chance to tell his superiors a secret: He was autistic. Fry figured this admission would persuade the Marines to let him return to the group home in Irvine for disturbed young adults where he was living when he enlisted.
Instead, he was sent back to Platoon 1021, Company B. The drill instructors became more helpful, and in April 2008 he finished the grueling 11-week regimen and was sent to Camp Pendleton for infantry training.
Within weeks he was under arrest for desertion and possession of child pornography.
Documents in Fry's court-martial case detail a troubled upbringing and a Marine career that was both improbable and misbegotten.
But far from being a routine instance of a young man unable to adjust to military life, the Fry case has exposed an awkward issue for the Marines and other military services: Recruiters sometimes take ethical shortcuts to make their quotas at a time when Americans have tired of the nation's wars and finding recruits is difficult.
According to court documents, Fry's recruiter knew he was autistic. The Marine Corps is investigating the recruiter's conduct.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-marine-autism6-2009jul06,0,...
Oklahoma veterans sue Halliburton, KBR
They claim the companies exposed soldiers to toxic smoke in Iraq and Afghanistan.
By DAVID HARPER World Staff Writer
Published: 7/18/2009
Two Oklahoma veterans of the war in Iraq are suing Halliburton Co. and KBR Inc., saying the companies "callously exposed and continue to expose soldiers and others to toxic smoke, ash and fumes" in Iraq and Afghanistan.
David Green of Miami, Okla., and Nick Daniel Heisler of Lawton say in the lawsuit, filed in federal court in Tulsa, that they are seeking "redress for American soldiers and others deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan who were poisoned" by the companies.
O'Neil said Friday that about 20 deaths have resulted from the defendants' actions.
He declined to estimate the number of people who have been sickened or injured, saying that total should become more clear during the discovery process.
A motion to certify the cases as a class-action lawsuit eventually will be filed, O'Neil said.
The majority of the cases involve smoke-related injuries from burn pits.
O'Neil said motions have been made to transfer the cases to one federal court district — either in Maryland or Florida — for consolidated pretrial discovery.
http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?subjectid=11&articl...
Casualties of War, Part I:
The hell of war comes home
July 26, 2009
DAVE PHILIPPS
THE GAZETTE
Before the murders started, Anthony Marquez’s mom dialed his sergeant at Fort Carson to warn that her son was poised to kill.
It was February 2006, and the 21-year-old soldier had not been the same since being wounded and coming home from Iraq eight months before. He had violent outbursts and thrashing nightmares. He was devouring pain pills and drinking too much. He always packed a gun.
“It was a dangerous combination. I told them he was a walking time bomb,” said his mother, Teresa Hernandez.
His sergeant told her there was nothing he could do. Then, she said, he started taunting her son, saying things like, “Your mommy called. She says you are going crazy.”
Eight months later, the time bomb exploded when her son used a stun gun to repeatedly shock a small-time drug dealer in Widefield over an ounce of marijuana, then shot him through the heart.
Marquez was the first infantry soldier in his brigade to murder someone after returning from Iraq. But he wasn’t the last.
Back home, 10 of its infantrymen have been arrested and accused of murder, attempted murder or manslaughter since 2006. Others have committed suicide, or tried to.
Soldiers say the torture and killing of Iraqi civilians lurked in the ranks. And when these soldiers came home to Colorado Springs suffering the emotional wounds of combat, soldiers say, some were ignored, some were neglected, some were thrown away and some were punished.
Some kept killing — this time in Colorado Springs.
Many of those soldiers are now behind bars.
This month, Fort Carson released a 126-page report by a task force of behavioral-health and Army professionals who looked for common threads in the soldiers’ crimes.
Marquez, who was arrested before the latest programs were created, said he would never have pulled the trigger if he had not gone to Iraq.
“If I was just a guy off the street, I might have hesitated to shoot,” Marquez said this spring as he sat in the Bent County Correctional Facility, where he is serving 30 years. “But after Iraq, it was just natural.”
More killing by more soldiers followed.
In August 2007, Louis Bressler, 24, robbed and shot a soldier he picked up on a street in Colorado Springs.
In December 2007, Bressler and fellow soldiers Bruce Bastien Jr., 21, and Kenneth Eastridge, 24, left the bullet-riddled body of a soldier from their unit on a west-side street.
In May and June 2008, police say Rudolfo Torres-Gandarilla, 20, and Jomar Falu-Vives, 23, drove around with an assault rifle, randomly shooting people.
In September 2008, police say John Needham, 25, beat a former girlfriend to death.
Most of the killers were from a single 500-soldier unit within the brigade called the 2nd Battalion, 12th Infantry Regiment.
Soldiers from other units at Fort Carson have committed crimes after deployments — military bookings at the El Paso County jail have tripled since the start of the Iraq war — but no other unit has a record as bad as the soldiers of the 4th Brigade.
In a one-year period from the fall of 2007 to the fall of 2008, the murder rate for the 500 Lethal Warriors was 114 times the rate for Colorado Springs.
The killings are only the headline-grabbing tip of a much broader pyramid of crime. Since 2005, the brigade’s returning soldiers have been involved in brawls, beatings, rapes, DUIs, drug deals, domestic violence, shootings, stabbings, kidnapping and suicides.
http://www.gazette.com/articles/iframe-59065-eastridge-audio.html
The Tulsa Peace Fellowship Counter-Recruitment Update/Digest, for August 2009
backpage
Leftover firearms killed 42,000 civilians since end of Vietnam War
June 29, 2009
HANOI - UNEXPLODED ordnance left over from the Vietnam War has killed more than 42,000 people in the country since the conflict ended more than three decades ago, and deadly accidents continue daily, a senior military official said on Monday.
US forces used 15 million tonnes of bombs and ammunition during the war and an estimated 800,000 tonnes of unexploded ordnance still contaminates 20 per cent of the country's area, Vice Defence Minister Senior Lieutenant General Nguyen Huy Hieu wrote in the state-run People's Army newspaper.
He said it may take more than 100 years to clear the contaminated area.
In addition to the deaths, some 62,000 people have been injured since the end of the war in 1975, and tens of thousands of them are permanently disabled, he said, adding that the ordnance has also caused big economic losses to Vietnam.
Mr Hieu said the government, helped with funds from international organisations and countries including the United States, has cleared more than 3 per cent of the contaminated area. It may cost tens of billions of dollars to finish the job, he said.
Mr Hieu's figures apparently did not include casualties in neighbouring Laos and Cambodia, which were also heavily bombed by the United States during the conflict and where thousands of people have also died in ordnance accidents since 1975.
http://www.straitstimes.com/Breaking%2BNews/SE%2BAsia/Story/STIStor...
26 Marine suicides so far in 2009
By Dan Lamothe - Staff writer
Tuesday Jul 28, 2009
The Corps recorded 26 suspected or confirmed suicides in the first half of 2009 despite broad-based efforts introduced to reduce the number of Marines taking their own life, officials said.
The 26 dead Marines put the Corps on pace for 52 in 2009, which would be the most since the beginning of the Iraq war in 2003.
Last year, the Corps lost 42 Marines to confirmed or suspected suicides, up from 25 in 2006 and 33 in 2007. The recent numbers have alarmed Marine leadership, prompting additional “all-hands” prevention training in March that included videos made by commanders, a slideshow outlining recent statistics and an overview of warning signs shown by Marines at risk of killing themselves.
“Peer groups have to recognize the signs at ankle level, not chest level,” said Sgt. Maj. Michael Timmerman, the senior enlisted adviser with the Personal and Family Readiness Division at Marine Corps headquarters.
Kent said he wants NCOs to feel empowered to report that a Marine in turmoil may be considering suicide, but he believes senior enlisted leadership and officers also need to be actively involved.
http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/2009/07/marine_suicide_072709w/
epitaph for this addition of "Truth in Recruiting"
sidebar:
M*A*S*H, the movie (Robert Altman, USA, 1970), featured the song "Suicide Is Painless"
music by Johnny Mandel and lyrics by Mike Altman, the director's 14-year-old son.
"A brave man once requested me
to answer questions that are key
is it to be or not to be
and I replied 'oh why ask me?'"
Ten years after the film's release, the song reached number one in the UK charts. The television show used an instrumental version of the song as its theme music.
Complete lyrics and audio track available online
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gO7uemm6Yo
Tulsa Peace Fellowship's counter-recruitment update/digest for August 2009
masthead
The website for the Tulsa Peace Fellowship is:
www.tulsapeacefellowship.org
TPF meets monthly @ Peace House in Tulsa
inside the Unitarian Universalist church at 1314 N. Greenwood Ave, in Tulsa, close to corner of Pine & Greenwood, just north of the OSU-Tulsa campus
info for TPF counter-recruitment-- contact by phone 918 906 0828
The next regular meeting of the Fellowship will be held
on Thursday, August 6 2009, 6:15 PM – 7:30 PM
The information provided in this digest/update herein is for non-profit use only, according to "fair use" doctrine. Copyright and all commercial exploitation rights remain with the various authors/publishers cited above.
further information
IN ACCORDANCE WITH TITLE 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107, THIS MATERIAL IS DISTRIBUTED WITHOUT PROFIT TO THOSE WHO HAVE EXPRESSED A PRIOR INTEREST IN RECEIVING THE INCLUDED INFORMATION FOR RESEARCH AND EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES. Tulsa Peace Fellowship HAS NO AFFILIATION WHATSOEVER WITH THE ORIGINATOR OF THESE ARTICLES NOR IS Tulsa Peace Fellowship ENDORSED OR SPONSORED BY THE ORIGINATORS.
SOURCE ARTICLE LINKS ARE PROVIDED AS A CONVENIENCE TO OUR READERS AND ALLOW FOR VERIFICATION OF AUTHENTICITY. HOWEVER, AS ORIGINATING PAGES ARE OFTEN UPDATED BY THEIR ORIGINATING HOST SITES, THE VERSIONS POSTED MAY NOT MATCH THE VERSIONS OUR READERS VIEW WHEN CLICKING THE SOURCE ARTICLE LINKS, OR INDEED, THE WEBPAGES MAY NO LONGER EVEN EXIST.
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