There never was a good war or a bad peace. ~Ben Franklin
Tulsa Peace Fellowship's counter-recruitment update/digest for June 2009
Truth in Recruiting
Tulsa Peace Fellowship's counter-recruitment update/digest for June 2009
lead story
We Shut Down the Army Experience Center: Videogame Lures Youth into Military Recruiters' Clutches
--counter-recruitment action in a Philadelphia shopping mall
more coverage:
Seven Counter-Recruiters Arrested at Philadelphia Mall over Predatory Recruiting Practices of the U.S. Military
--some 300 veterans, military families, religious leaders and voters decry the Army pilot program that entices teens with violent video games
related group nationwide: Peace Action
page one:
alternatives to violence:
The Youth PROMISE Act : Legislation that Serves as a Building Block for Domestic Peace
--bipartisan bill introduced into the U.S. House by Bobby Scott (D-VA-03) and Congressman Mike Castle (R-DE) and in the Senate by Robert Casey (D-PA) and Olympia Snowe (R-ME)
--acronym stands for: Prison Reduction through Opportunity Mentoring, Intervention, Support and Education
--The Tulsa Peace Fellowship visited the Tulsa Police Department (Gilcrease Division police station) on the 8th of May, 2009, to offer to provide a community partner for the anti-gang unit, in particular to help with non-violent communication (NVC) classes
photos online:
see Ning http://tulsapeacefellowship.ning.com/photo/photo/slideshow
and here: http://tulsapeacefellowship.ning.com/xn/detail/2567841:Event:2408
file under: antiwar grassroots pressure in Afghanistan
Hundreds of Afghans take to the streets to protest increasing aerial occupation: 170 civilians killed by U.S.
--US Military only lends a deaf ear
compare data from U.S. occupation of Iraq:
According to a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, during the Iraq war 20 percent of soldiers and Marines admit being responsible for noncombatant deaths.
That's 1 in 5 soldiers that have killed an Iraqi civilian. That sure is some kind of freedom they're giving the Iraqis.
related story:
US accused of illegal white phosphorus attack in Afghanistan, at Farah
--US Military only lends a deaf ear
Dad wants sensible answer for soldier's training death
--last June, a 20-year-old soldier-in-training died during an exercise near Fort Bragg, N.C.
page two:
file under: our monsters in Iraq
Iraqis demand death for US soldier convicted in a Kentucky court of rape & multiple murder
--follow up on prevalence of sexual assault in U.S. military, especially since drop in entrance standards
file under: psychotic sub-culture
U.S. service member kills 5 fellow troops of undistinguished rank, in Iraq
--Sgt. John M. Russell. Russell has been charged with five counts of murder after opening fire at a counseling clinic in Iraq, at Baghdad’s Camp Liberty (U.S. military base)
related op/ed piece:
Fratricide at Camp Liberty
backpage
file under: breaking the oath taken to defend and uphold the U.S. Constitution
Soldiers In Afghanistan Given Bibles, Told To "Hunt People For Jesus"
--It is against U.S. military rules to proselytize on behalf of one's religion
--It is a crime in Afghanistan to attempt to convert anyone from Islam to any other religion
related story:
Major exposé of right-wing religious bias in the U.S. Military: Harper's Magazine
--Conversion at the point of a sword, or at the muzzle of a gun: the barbarians are at it again
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2009/05/0082488
epigraph for this issue of "Truth in Recruiting":
"The average and healthy individual - the man who can endure the mental and physical stresses of combat - still has such an inner and usually unrealized resistance towards killing a fellow man that he will not of his own volition take life if it is possible to turn away from that responsibility."
~Gen. S.L.A. Marshall, a respected Army combat historian, in his landmark World War Two study, "Men Against Fire"
Tulsa Peace Fellowship's counter-recruitment update/digest for June 2009
lead story
We Shut Down the Army Experience Center
Hundreds Protest the Army Experience Center, a pilot project to reach youth through free video & war games.
May 2, 2009
Saturday over 200 of us, with two sound systems, large banners and signs, marched a mile through suburban streets and into the Franklin Mills Mall in NE Philadelphia. We were loud outside, and louder inside, determined to resist the Army's recruiting of youth through video games and war simulations.
We were stopped by rows of police and security guards from entering the Army Experience Center. We read aloud a criminal complaint against the AEC and the owners of the mall, for conspiring to draw people into the commission of war crimes. I explained what war crimes are. We chanted "Shut It Down!" "War is NOT a Game!" and "What are they recruiting for? Murder, rape, torture, war!"
Sue Niederer of Pennington, NJ, whose son 2nd Lt. Seth Dvorin was killed near Iskandariyah, Iraq on February 3, 2004, wore a t-shirt saying "Recruiters Lied!" She got on the bullhorn to suggest we all take a public tour of the center. The police spokesperson announced, "you're not going to be going on the tour because this center is closed down now!" Oh -- he didn't say that! We chanted "shut it down" all the louder. Before the police warning to leave, some of the peace activists went outside to have a vigil on the road. But most of us stayed, attracting shoppers, and rows of young kids holding skateboards, from the skate park next door. Some of us sat down. We weren't tired, but you've got to teach people how to sit down as resistance.
Thanks to Op Ed News who headlined an article by Elaine Brower. Editor Rob Krall called the action "very well organized." Thanks to dozens of Veterans for Peace; to Pat Elder of the National Network Opposing the Militarization of Youth; Iraq Veterans Against the War; Code Pinkers and Grannies of all kinds, Peace Action, the Brandywine Peace Community, and activists from all over the east coast. Special thanks to the Activists Response Team, who did the March of the Dead, and took 7 arrests for disorderly conduct, which we will help fight.
Elaine Brower of World Can't Wait, one of the 7 pictured in white masks who were arrested at the end of the action, wrote, "It seemed to me that the recruiters were becoming a bit unnerved, and the police were becoming extremely impatient. This was a peaceful protest, as we were not only exercising our first amendment right of 'freedom of speech', but trying to get our youth de-militarized, and away from the clutches of bloody war games. Of course, since the AEC is open to the 'public' many demanded to go inside, but weren't allowed. Ret. Army Col. Ann Wright at that point was speaking directly to the kids who had gathered to witness what we were doing and told them not to 'buy the recruiters' stories' of patriotic glory."
A middle school teacher brought 4 of his students to the protest. They had already taken the tour of the AEC, and brought copies of the letters they sent to David & Melvin Simon, owners of the mall which leases to the Army.
Manny, who was about to speak to the crowd just as the arrests started, and was hustled out by his teacher (sorry Manny) wrote, in part:
"Do you believe money is worth more than human lives? You just probably said to yourself, 'No, of course not.' Well, now you are unknowingly answering 'yes' because of the space you have leased out to the Army. They have recently opened an Army Experience Center. They are supposedly not recruiting kids. They have video games set up for kids to play and have the 'army experience.' Last time I checked arcades don't ask for your social security number....
The Army does not change a single cent for this. They don't charge admission; they don't charge you for playing either. Instead, they give you an ID card that you have to swipe in order to play. They record this in their database. They see how many times you played the Humvee simulation. They see how many times you rode in the Black Hawk Helicopter. Then they decide what field to place the child in once he/she turns 18. The recruiters will come to the child's home and ask them to take a test. The recruiters will not be regular run-of-the-mill men. They will pick strong, well built men who will try everything to convince them to take the test and join the Army. They will be sent to a war we don't even belong in. We, the U.S., are like the strong kid who thinks he can beat everyone at the playground. We pick fights for no reason. Then we walk away not caring who got hurt or who died."
Debra Sweet, Director, The World Can't Wait
See Shut Down the AEC for ongoing news on the effort to shut down this project.
{Thank you Rena for bringing this story to our attention}
Seven Counter-Recruiters Arrested at Philadelphia Mall over Predatory Recruiting
Some 300 veterans, military families, religious leaders and voters decry the Army pilot program that entices teens with violent video games
May 6, 2009
Philadelphia, PA — Several hundred demonstrators from a coalition of 30 national and regional veteran, youth and peace groups, including the Iraq Veterans Against the War, Veterans for Peace, BuxMont Coalition for Peace Action, Student Peace Action Network, protested what they claimed were unethical military recruitment of teenagers at Franklin Mills Mall in northeast Philadelphia.
The protesters rallied at a church, then marched one mile to the Franklin Mills mall where dozens of police blocked them from entering the “Army Experience Center” (AEC). After nearly an hour of chants of “War is no game, shut down the Army Experience Center” and speeches, Bob Smith of the Brandywine Peace Community (a member of United for Peace and Justice, a coalition of 1,300 national and local organizations) delivered a criminal complaint (4) to a Captain at the AEC and to a representative of the mall’s parent company, The Simon Property Group, Inc. After two police warnings, hundreds of protesters continued to chant and listen to speeches by Col. Wright and others, until the police arrested seven conducting civil disobedience by refusing to leave. Forced out of the mall, people continued to vigil and listen to songs by the Granny Peace Brigade outside the “red” entrance to the mall.
“The Army Experience Center is an abomination. It epitomizes the turn for the worse that the military was forced to take over the last eight years. It is misleading. It targets impressionable minors, and it propagates the glorification of war. I am utterly disgusted that the Army which I loved and in which I served so long has resorted to such a deceiving recruiting strategy,” said Sergeant Jesse Hamilton, who served nine years in the Army including tours in Iraq. After receiving and honorable discharge, he joined Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW).
Elaine Brower, 53, who sits on the board of Peace Action of Staten Island, was one of those taken to jail. She has been organizing against the AEC because she is the mother of a Marine who just returned from his third tour of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Col. Anne Wright, former State Department official of 16 years shouted, “We demand that our policy isn’t militarism but diplomacy.”
Critics of the AEC point out that it is not acceptable for alcohol, cigarette, pornography, gun manufacturers and pharmaceutical companies to market to thirteen year olds. They claim those decisions are for adults and dying for something you believe in is also an adult decision.
One of the religious leaders present, Rev. Bob Moore, the director of the Coalition for Peace Action, preached, “War is not fun and exciting; War is hell on earth. If you’re not old enough to drink you are not old enough to kill. No recruiting of our children!” He organized one hundred people to attend the protest.”
With American’s saying they want troops home from Iraq and becoming more concerned about our troops in Afghanistan, the military is finding it more difficult to recruit youth who disagree with U.S. foreign policy. “In its desperate approach to meet recruiting numbers, the military is teaching the wrong values to teenagers. Sugarcoating combat experience with virtual war is a dishonor to those with real war experience. That’s why the Student Peace Action Network (SPAN) works with young veterans, and high school and college students across the country for truth and honor in recruiting,” stated Jonathan Williams, Span’s coordinator.
Police estimated over 200 participants while organizers claimed nearly 300 attended the rally at St. Luke’s United Church of Christ, then marched with one lead 12’ by 3’ banner that said, “War is No Game, Close-down Army Experience Center” along Knights Road to the AEC where an enlarged version of the criminal complaint was handed over and stated, in part, “THAT: the Army Experience Center is therefore involved in the “Criminal Solicitation of Minors” – soliciting underage persons to act in a violent manner and thereby promoting and supporting criminal and corrupt behavior…”
The Pentagon is committed to establishing “Experience Centers” in malls across the country. The $13 Million, 14,500 square foot facility at Franklin Mills Mall boasts dozens of video game computers and X-Box video game consoles with various interactive, military-style shooting games as well as Apache helicopter and Humvee simulators that allow teens to simulate the killing of Arabs and Afghans. Philadelphia Inquirer reporter Rob Watson compares the Army Experience Center to “a heavy dose of candy cigarettes.” (3) 200 packs of candy cigarettes were handed out with Watson’s column at the protest.
After leaving the indoor skateboard park across from the AEC, one teenager wearing a helmet and kneepads, with skateboard in tow, quipped “skateboards are the solution,” after grabbing a “War Isn’t Working,” Peace Action, bumper sticker.
PeaceAction Montgomery, Coalition for Peace Action, Peace Action of Staten Island and BuxMont Coalition for Peace Action are all affiliates of Peace Action and helped organize the protest.
http://www.hotindienews.com/2009/05/06/102060
For more information: http://shutdowntheaec.net
Peace Action Founded in 1957, the United States’ largest peace and disarmament organization, with over 100,000 paid members and nearly 100 chapters in 34 states, works to abolish nuclear weapons, promote government spending priorities that support human needs, encourage real security through international cooperation and human rights, and support nonmilitary solutions to the conflicts with Afghanistan, Iran and Iraq. http://www.Peace-Action.org
Peace Action Education Fund’s, Student Peace Action Network (SPAN) works with students on over 100 campuses nationwide. http://www.StudentPeaceAction.org
Tulsa Peace Fellowship's counter-recruitment update/digest for June 2009
page 1
The Youth PROMISE Act
The Youth PROMISE Act, introduced into the U.S. House by Bobby Scott (D-VA-03) and Congressman Mike Castle (R-DE) and in the Senate by Robert Casey (D-PA) and Olympia Snowe (R-ME), implements the best policy recommendations from crime policy makers, researchers, practitioners, analysts, and law enforcement officials from across the political spectrum concerning evidence and research-based strategies to reduce gang violence and crime. The Youth PROMISE Act is a bold plan for addressing youth violence in all sectors of society by delivering funding to programs on the ground effectively doing the work of youth violence prevention.
The legislation calls for hundreds of millions of dollars to fund prevention programs, which could include many of the organizations we have worked with and promoted over the years, including Tariq Khamisa Foundation, Barrios Unidos, Challenge Day, our friends doing restorative justice work, NVC training and so many others.
Under the Act, communities facing the greatest youth gang and crime challenges will each form a local council called a Promise Coordinating Council ("PCC") which will:
Include representatives from law enforcement, court services, schools, social service organizations, health and mental health providers and community-based organizations, including faith-based organizations.
Develop a comprehensive plan for implementing evidence-based prevention and intervention strategies that target young people at risk for gang involvement in addition to those who have already become a part of the cycle of violence in an effort to empower them toward productive and law-abiding alternatives.
This legislation is the first step toward building a metrically driven culture of violence prevention and reduction. It builds local structures for decision making and oversight that must document measurable impact in the communities. Through this legislation we will finally see a set of best practices translated from the field in an institutionalized manner that will allow for effective replication around the country.
This will save lives AND money.
More on The Youth PROMISE Act:
On Friday, February 13, 2009, Congressman Robert C. "Bobby" Scott (D-VA-03) and Congressman Mike Castle (R-DE-AL) re- introduced the Youth Prison Reduction through Opportunity Mentoring, Intervention, Support and Education, or Youth PROMISE Act. Companion legislation was also introduced in the US Senate by Senators Robert Casey (D-PA) and Olympia Snowe (R-ME).
The Youth PROMISE Act implements the best policy recommendations from crime policy makers, researchers, practitioners, analysts, and law enforcement officials from across the political spectrum concerning evidence- and research-based strategies to reduce gang violence and crime. Under the Youth PROMISE Act, communities facing the greatest youth gang and crime challenges will each form a local council called a Promise Coordinating Council ("PCC"). The PCC will include representatives from law enforcement, court services, schools, social service organizations, health and mental health providers and community-based organizations, including faith-based organizations. The PCC will then develop a comprehensive plan for implementing evidence-based prevention and intervention strategies. These strategies will target young people who are at risk of becoming involved, or who are already involved in, gangs or the criminal justice system to redirect them toward productive and law-abiding alternatives.
The bill also provides for law enforcement support through "Youth Oriented Policing Services" (YOPS), and a victim/witness assistance program. New provisions of the Youth PROMISE Act this year provide additional grants to high intensity gang localities to reduce or alleviate the effects of gang violence, and grants to localities to fund police and community collaborative programs to provide crime prevention, research, and intervention services designed to prevent crime by at-risk youth and youth gang members.
"I have long believed that the best way to reduce violence in this country is through prevention, and the Youth PROMISE Act does just that," said Rep. Castle. "We must engage youth in positive ways through education, after school programs, sports, as well as family and community support to keep kids away from the dangers of gangs and other violent activities."
The Youth PROMISE Act was supported last Congress by over 200 national and state juvenile justice, civil rights, education and religious organizations, including Fight Crime: Invest in Kids, the National Juvenile Defender Center, the Justice Policy Institute, the NAACP Washington DC Office, the Coalition for Juvenile Justice, and the Campaign for Youth Justice, among others. We expect that list to continue to grow this Congress.
Visit online: http://www.bobbyscott.house.gov/
For more information on the legislation, please check out the material provided by the sponsor's office.
Hundreds protest Afghan civilian killings
May 10, 2009
ABOUT 1000 students marched in the Afghan capital Sunday to protest against the alleged killing of scores of civilians in US air strikes.
Chanting “Death to America”, “Death to the biggest terrorist” and “long live Islam,” they held banners reading “The blood of the Farah martyrs will never dry” and “USA is the world's biggest terrorist”.
Another banner demanded that “the murderers of more than 180 martyrs of Farah” go on trial, said the photographer, who estimated crowd numbered up to 1,000.
The toll from air strikes and ground fighting with Taliban in Farah province's Bala Buluk district nearly a week ago is disputed.
President Hamid Karzai has said that 125-130 civilians, including children and women, were killed in the strikes alone. Other Afghan officials have issued differing tolls, one as high as 167.
The Afghan tolls would make the Farah incident one of the deadliest for civilians in foreign military strikes since the US-led led the 2001 invasion that ousted the hardline Taliban regime.
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,25456850-5005961,00....
US accused of illegal white phosphorus attack in Afghanistan
By Stephen C. Webster
May 10, 2009
United States forces in Afghanistan are accused of illegally deploying white phosphorus against civilians following a firefight with Taliban militants, according to published reports.
White phosphorus is legal to use on a battlefield but illegal to deploy for any reason other than illumination. The chemical ignites on contact with the air. Human rights groups said using the substance in populated, civilian areas is a war crime, but the United States is not a signatory to any treaty which entirely bans its use.
“The American military denied using the incendiary in the battle in Farah province — which President Hamid Karzai has said killed 125 to 130 civilians.
Marc Garlasco, senior military analyst at Human Rights Watch and a former senior Pentagon intelligence analyst, said "there has been widespread and regular use of white phosphorus by US and NATO forces in Afghanistan,” reported the Mail Online.
Dr Mohammad Aref Jalali, the head of an internationally funded burns hospital in Herat, said villagers taken to hospital after the incident had ‘highly unusual burns’ on their hands and feet that he had not seen before,” reported The Guardian. “We cannot be 100% sure what type of chemical it was and we do not have the equipment here to find out. One of the women who came here told us that 22 members of her family were totally burned. She said a bomb distributed white power that caught fire and then set people’s clothes alight.”
“The stories that are emerging are quite frankly horrifying,” a United Nations official told the Guardian.
“Local villagers went to the mosque to pray for peace. Shortly after evening prayers the air strikes were called in, and they continued for a couple of hours whilst the villagers were frantically calling the local governor to get him to call off the air strikes.”
Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai demanded the United States call a halt to its air strikes, cautioning that the attacks were turning civilians against Western forces.
U.S. General James L. Jones told ABC’s “This Week” that he refused to “tie the hands of our commanders."
http://rawstory.com/08/news/2009/05/10/us-accused-of-illegal-white-...
Dad wants sensible answer for soldier's training death
By Erin Sullivan, St. Petersburg Times Staff Writer
May 24, 2009
Last June, a 20-year-old soldier training to be a Green Beret died during an exercise near Fort Bragg, N.C.
The Army said Norman "Ehren" Murburg III was bitten by a 39-inch water moccasin on his left hand.
He died alone, 400 yards from his next checkpoint. His body was found the next day.
The snakebite story never made sense to his father, Mike Murburg. His son grew up outdoors on their rambling 5 acres in Darby, a rural area in northern Pasco County. He hunted, fished. He knew all about snakes.
But the Army said snakebite, and, back then, Mike trusted the Army.
Then, just a few weeks ago, an officer from Special Forces and an investigator came to Mike's home.
They said maybe the cause of death wasn't a snakebite after all. But they didn't know what it was.
"Excuse me,'' Mike said, "but I think my son should be present for this discussion.''
He walked to his bedroom and returned with an urn of ashes — some of Ehren's remains.
Mike, a bear of a man at 6 feet 5 inches, placed the urn on the coffee table in front of the men sitting on his sofa.
He sat back down.
"Continue."
remainder of article: http://www.tampabay.com/news/military/article1003728.ece
Tulsa Peace Fellowship's counter-recruitment update/digest for June 2009
page 2
Iraqis demand death for US soldier convicted of rape-murder
May 09, 2009
IRAQIS have called for the execution of former US soldier Steven Dale Green, who faces the death penalty after being convicted of raping an Iraqi teenager and executing the girl and her family.
Relatives and residents in Mahmudiyah, a small agricultural community south of Baghdad where five US soldiers committed one of the most chilling crimes of the war involving American troops, said the jury should condemn Green to death.
"We are now waiting for the American judiciary to carry out what is its humanitarian responsibility -- to do the right thing by giving the strongest punishment to this criminal," said Um Mohammad al-Janabi, a relative of the family.
Green was found guilty on Thursday on all 17 charges - including rape, premeditated murder and obstruction of justice - by a federal jury in a Kentucky civilian court.
Three other soldiers who also took part in the March 2006 atrocity in Babil province's Mahmudiyah were given life sentences by a military court.
A fourth, who acted as lookout, was jailed for 27 months.
Green was accused of being the leader of the gang rape of a 14-year-old Iraqi girl in the town of about 50,000, and of killing her, her father, mother and six-year-old sister.
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,25452024-5005961,00....
follow up:
Civilian jury spares ex-soldier death penalty for Iraq murders, rape; sentence will be life
05-21-2009 6:09 PM
By Brett Barrouquere, Associated Press Writer
PADUCAH, Ky. (Associated Press) -- An ex-soldier convicted of raping and killing an Iraqi teen and murdering her family was spared the death penalty Thursday and will serve a life sentence after jurors couldn't agree unanimously on a punishment.
Former Pfc. Steven Dale Green of Midland, Texas, will be formally sentenced Sept. 4 by U.S. District Judge Thomas B. Russell. Jurors who convicted Green on May 7 told Russell they couldn't agree on the appropriate sentence after deliberating more than 10 hours over two days.
In a March 2006 attack in Mahmoudiya, about 20 miles south of Baghdad, Green and three other soldiers went to the home of 14-year-old Abeer Qassim al-Janabi. Green shot and killed the teen's mother, father and sister, then became the third soldier to rape the girl before killing her.
Green's attorneys never denied Green's involvement in the attack. Instead, they focused on trying to build a case that Green didn't deserve the death penalty.
Associated Press Writer Kristin M. Hall contributed to this report.
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.
http://tulsa.cox.net/cci/newsnational/national?_mode=view&_stat...
U.S. service member kills 4 or 5 fellow troops in Iraq
BAGHDAD - A U.S. service member opened fire on fellow members of the military, killing four and wounding several others, at the main U.S. base in Baghdad, officials told NBC News on Monday.
The toll was the highest for U.S. personnel in a single attack since April 10, when a suicide truck driver killed five American soldiers with a blast near a police headquarters in the northern city of Mosul.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30678715/
More coverage:
U.S.-IRAQ: Fragging Massacre Puts War Trauma Under the Spotlight
By Aaron Glantz
More than 230 active soldiers, airmen and marines committed suicide last year - the highest military suicide statistic in nearly 30 years. In January, more U.S. soldiers killed themselves than died in Iraq and Afghanistan combined.
In November 2006, a New York National Guardsman was arraigned in a military court on charges of murdering two officers in an explosion at one of Saddam Hussein's former palaces.
The series of incidents leaves some observers to recall the military's internal meltdown during the Vietnam War.
"In December of 1972, the Defence Department acknowleged that somewhere between 800 and 1,000 officers had actually been blown up by their subordinates," explained Vietnam war widow Penny Coleman, author of the book 'Flashback: Post Traumatic Stress Disorder: Suicide and the Lessons of War'.
After eight years of war in Afghanistan and six years of war in Iraq, the Pentagon reports nearly 800,000 U.S. soldiers have served more than one tour in the war zone. According to the non-partisan Rand Corporation, approximately 300,000 Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder or major depression, while another 320,000 have sustained a traumatic brain injury, physical brain damage often caused by roadside bombs and mortars.
"The first impulse is to be angry at a service member for taking lives, that's the first inclination," Montalvan added, "but then you can't help but ask: 'What caused this person to be this upset, this angry?' And the likely conclusion is that this person could not get help."
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=46803
TPF comment: "Fragging" is a misnomer, in the above headline. Friendly-fire would seem to be the euphemism most accurate for this tragic and unnecessary massacre. But as the commentary below suggests, "fratricide" may also apply.
op/ed piece:
Fratricide at Camp Liberty
Wednesday 20 May 2009
by: Camillo "Mac" Bica, t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Sergeant Russell's behavior in killing other than the enemy is not an aberration if one includes the 20 percent who admit to killing noncombatants. While apologists search for answers in issues of professionalism, family, relationships, finances, etc., there is a far more reasonable explanation of the conditions that led to these murders - one that is straightforward and foundational. Military training - creating soldiers who will kill - reinforced by combat, the "growth experience" that General Casey referred to, and impacted by multiple tours with inadequate dwell time, traumatized and dehumanized Sergeant Russell and the others turning them into murderers capable of such atrocity. This is why war is an outrage and unnecessary war sacrilege. This is why we cannot accept the military programming our young people to kill. This is why we cannot support the architects of war, no matter their political party. This is why we cannot not tolerate the Army Experience Center, a multi-million-dollar recruitment video-game arcade in Philadelphia, where children as young as thirteen are manipulated into believing that war is a game. This is why we cannot sit back and be patient while war and occupation continue. This is why we must reject the "Obama is doing his best with the wars he inherited" excuse and be out there in the streets yelling and screaming for peace.
Think for a moment how you would feel should an Army representative show up at your front door and tell you that your son or daughter will be coming home piecemeal in a box. Would you still think patience was a virtue? Or would you forever regret accepting that continued violence was necessary and ending war takes time?
Think for a moment how you would feel should your child be killed by an occupier's bomb and then hear her murderers render her death insignificant as collateral damage. Would you still welcome the invaders as liberators? Or would you strap dynamite to your chest to avenge your child's slaughter?
RAVE TO THE GRAVE! Demand an end to war and occupation. Now, not later. Someone's child is dying while we wait. You copy?
http://www.truthout.org/052009K?n
byline:
Camillo "Mac" Bica, Ph.D., is a professor of philosophy at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. His focus is in ethics, particularly as it applies to war and warriors. As a veteran recovering from his experiences as a United States Marine Corps Officer during the Vietnam War, he founded, and coordinated for five years, the Veterans Self-Help Initiative, a therapeutic community of veterans suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. He is a long-time activist for peace and justice, a member of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War, and the coordinator of the Long Island Chapter of Veterans for Peace.
Tulsa Peace Fellowship's counter-recruitment update/digest for June 2009
backpage
Soldiers In Afghanistan Given Bibles, Told To "Hunt People For Jesus" (video)
May 4th 2009
A U.S. church raised money to send Bibles, printed in the Pashtu and Dari languages, to American soldiers stationed in Afghanistan, a report on Al Jazeera documented.
It is against military rules to proselytize -- a regulation one of the soldiers filmed by the network readily acknowledged. "You cannot proselytize, but you can give gifts," says the soldier. It is a crime in Afghanistan to attempt to convert anyone from Islam to any other religion. "I also want to praise God because my church collected some money to get Bibles for Afghanistan. They came and sent the money out." The footage is said to be roughly a year old.
The Al Jazeera report also shows a military preacher urging army parishioners to "hunt people for Jesus."
"The Special Forces guys, they hunt men. Basically, we do the same things as Christians. We hunt people for Jesus. We do, we hunt them down. Get the hound of heaven after them, so we get them into the Kingdom. That's what we do, that's our business," he says.
A military spokesman did tell Reuters, however, that none of the Bibles were, as far as she knew, ever actually distributed.
"That specific case involved a soldier who brought in a donation of translated Bibles that were sent to his personal address by his home church. He showed them to the group and the chaplain explained that he cannot distribute them," said Major Jennifer Willis.
"The translated Bibles were never distributed as far as we know, because the soldier understood that if he distributed them he would be in violation of general order 1, and he would be subject to punishment."
President Bush created an international uproar when he referred to the "war on terror" as a "crusade."
videolink: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/04/soldiers-in-afghanistan-g_...
file under: The barbarians are at it again, claiming to be civilized
Major exposé of right-wing religious bias in the U.S. Military: Harper's Magazine
--Conversion at the point of a sword, or at the muzzle of a gun
"The crusade for a Christian military"
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2009/05/0082488
--available online but only to Harper's subscribers--
Tulsa Peace Fellowship's counter-recruitment update/digest for June 2009
masthead
who we are:
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
If you have not already done so, please join the new social networking tool for TPF on Ning, in lieu of TPFtalks on yahoogroups, which has fallen into disuse Thank you! You can check out our new tool here: http://tulsapeacefellowship.ning.com/ (new for 2009) Also still going strong: our announcement list on yahoo! tulsapeace@yahoogroups.com (since 2002) Go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/ and search for "tulsapeace"
Through its counter-recruitment task force, TPF is a member of the
National Network in Opposition to the Militarization of Youth (NNOMY)
On the web: http://www.nnomy.org/joomla/index.php?option=com_content&task=v...
Tulsa Peace Fellowship is non-partisan, and is open to 3rd parties, progressive Dems, libertarians, etc. TPF is the activist wing of the peace movement in Eastern Oklahoma "Waging Peace One Person at a Time".
Peace House-Tulsa is an incubator for peace and justice. The Peace House building can host a wide range of activities: classes, discussion groups, meditation, music-making, social gatherings, retreats, etc. While some activities may be limited by the size and amenities of this building, our imaginations need not be limited!
If you enjoyed this news digest and/or found this update useful, please consider making a donation of time, money, or effort to the Tulsa Peace Fellowship. Details on tax status available.
info for TPF counter-recruitment-- contact by phone 918 906 0828
The next regular meeting of the Fellowship will be held
on Thursday, June 11 2009, 6:15 PM – 7:30 PM
--including members from other local non-partisan groups such as the Tulsa chapter of “Season for Non-Violence,” the Tulsa University chapter of Amnesty International, ImpeachOK1.org, TulsaTruth.org, the Center for Racial Justice in Tulsa, and the Tulsa Interfaith Allliance.
--including a meeting of the counter-recruitment campaign activists
Come join us! Especially parents, guardians, and students in the Tulsa Public Schools system who are interested in countering the presence of military recruiters on school grounds.
An archive of TPF counter-recruitment updates and other related TPF material is available to members online:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/tulsapeace/
You must sign in to yahoo! groups to see the archived "message history"
TPF messages have been archived online since 2002
TPF was founded some 30 years ago.
Current membership online: 701 subscribers
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
Tulsa Peace Fellowship's counter-recruitment update/digest for June 2009
lead story
We Shut Down the Army Experience Center: Videogame Lures Youth into Military Recruiters' Clutches
--counter-recruitment action in a Philadelphia shopping mall
more coverage:
Seven Counter-Recruiters Arrested at Philadelphia Mall over Predatory Recruiting Practices of the U.S. Military
--some 300 veterans, military families, religious leaders and voters decry the Army pilot program that entices teens with violent video games
related group nationwide: Peace Action
page one:
alternatives to violence:
The Youth PROMISE Act : Legislation that Serves as a Building Block for Domestic Peace
--bipartisan bill introduced into the U.S. House by Bobby Scott (D-VA-03) and Congressman Mike Castle (R-DE) and in the Senate by Robert Casey (D-PA) and Olympia Snowe (R-ME)
--acronym stands for: Prison Reduction through Opportunity Mentoring, Intervention, Support and Education
--The Tulsa Peace Fellowship visited the Tulsa Police Department (Gilcrease Division police station) on the 8th of May, 2009, to offer to provide a community partner for the anti-gang unit, in particular to help with non-violent communication (NVC) classes
photos online:
see Ning http://tulsapeacefellowship.ning.com/photo/photo/slideshow
and here: http://tulsapeacefellowship.ning.com/xn/detail/2567841:Event:2408
file under: antiwar grassroots pressure in Afghanistan
Hundreds of Afghans take to the streets to protest increasing aerial occupation: 170 civilians killed by U.S.
--US Military only lends a deaf ear
compare data from U.S. occupation of Iraq:
According to a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, during the Iraq war 20 percent of soldiers and Marines admit being responsible for noncombatant deaths.
That's 1 in 5 soldiers that have killed an Iraqi civilian. That sure is some kind of freedom they're giving the Iraqis.
related story:
US accused of illegal white phosphorus attack in Afghanistan, at Farah
--US Military only lends a deaf ear
Dad wants sensible answer for soldier's training death
--last June, a 20-year-old soldier-in-training died during an exercise near Fort Bragg, N.C.
page two:
file under: our monsters in Iraq
Iraqis demand death for US soldier convicted in a Kentucky court of rape & multiple murder
--follow up on prevalence of sexual assault in U.S. military, especially since drop in entrance standards
file under: psychotic sub-culture
U.S. service member kills 5 fellow troops of undistinguished rank, in Iraq
--Sgt. John M. Russell. Russell has been charged with five counts of murder after opening fire at a counseling clinic in Iraq, at Baghdad’s Camp Liberty (U.S. military base)
related op/ed piece:
Fratricide at Camp Liberty
backpage
file under: breaking the oath taken to defend and uphold the U.S. Constitution
Soldiers In Afghanistan Given Bibles, Told To "Hunt People For Jesus"
--It is against U.S. military rules to proselytize on behalf of one's religion
--It is a crime in Afghanistan to attempt to convert anyone from Islam to any other religion
related story:
Major exposé of right-wing religious bias in the U.S. Military: Harper's Magazine
--Conversion at the point of a sword, or at the muzzle of a gun: the barbarians are at it again
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2009/05/0082488
epigraph for this issue of "Truth in Recruiting":
"The average and healthy individual - the man who can endure the mental and physical stresses of combat - still has such an inner and usually unrealized resistance towards killing a fellow man that he will not of his own volition take life if it is possible to turn away from that responsibility."
~Gen. S.L.A. Marshall, a respected Army combat historian, in his landmark World War Two study, "Men Against Fire"
Tulsa Peace Fellowship's counter-recruitment update/digest for June 2009
lead story
We Shut Down the Army Experience Center
Hundreds Protest the Army Experience Center, a pilot project to reach youth through free video & war games.
May 2, 2009
Saturday over 200 of us, with two sound systems, large banners and signs, marched a mile through suburban streets and into the Franklin Mills Mall in NE Philadelphia. We were loud outside, and louder inside, determined to resist the Army's recruiting of youth through video games and war simulations.
We were stopped by rows of police and security guards from entering the Army Experience Center. We read aloud a criminal complaint against the AEC and the owners of the mall, for conspiring to draw people into the commission of war crimes. I explained what war crimes are. We chanted "Shut It Down!" "War is NOT a Game!" and "What are they recruiting for? Murder, rape, torture, war!"
Sue Niederer of Pennington, NJ, whose son 2nd Lt. Seth Dvorin was killed near Iskandariyah, Iraq on February 3, 2004, wore a t-shirt saying "Recruiters Lied!" She got on the bullhorn to suggest we all take a public tour of the center. The police spokesperson announced, "you're not going to be going on the tour because this center is closed down now!" Oh -- he didn't say that! We chanted "shut it down" all the louder. Before the police warning to leave, some of the peace activists went outside to have a vigil on the road. But most of us stayed, attracting shoppers, and rows of young kids holding skateboards, from the skate park next door. Some of us sat down. We weren't tired, but you've got to teach people how to sit down as resistance.
Thanks to Op Ed News who headlined an article by Elaine Brower. Editor Rob Krall called the action "very well organized." Thanks to dozens of Veterans for Peace; to Pat Elder of the National Network Opposing the Militarization of Youth; Iraq Veterans Against the War; Code Pinkers and Grannies of all kinds, Peace Action, the Brandywine Peace Community, and activists from all over the east coast. Special thanks to the Activists Response Team, who did the March of the Dead, and took 7 arrests for disorderly conduct, which we will help fight.
Elaine Brower of World Can't Wait, one of the 7 pictured in white masks who were arrested at the end of the action, wrote, "It seemed to me that the recruiters were becoming a bit unnerved, and the police were becoming extremely impatient. This was a peaceful protest, as we were not only exercising our first amendment right of 'freedom of speech', but trying to get our youth de-militarized, and away from the clutches of bloody war games. Of course, since the AEC is open to the 'public' many demanded to go inside, but weren't allowed. Ret. Army Col. Ann Wright at that point was speaking directly to the kids who had gathered to witness what we were doing and told them not to 'buy the recruiters' stories' of patriotic glory."
A middle school teacher brought 4 of his students to the protest. They had already taken the tour of the AEC, and brought copies of the letters they sent to David & Melvin Simon, owners of the mall which leases to the Army.
Manny, who was about to speak to the crowd just as the arrests started, and was hustled out by his teacher (sorry Manny) wrote, in part:
"Do you believe money is worth more than human lives? You just probably said to yourself, 'No, of course not.' Well, now you are unknowingly answering 'yes' because of the space you have leased out to the Army. They have recently opened an Army Experience Center. They are supposedly not recruiting kids. They have video games set up for kids to play and have the 'army experience.' Last time I checked arcades don't ask for your social security number....
The Army does not change a single cent for this. They don't charge admission; they don't charge you for playing either. Instead, they give you an ID card that you have to swipe in order to play. They record this in their database. They see how many times you played the Humvee simulation. They see how many times you rode in the Black Hawk Helicopter. Then they decide what field to place the child in once he/she turns 18. The recruiters will come to the child's home and ask them to take a test. The recruiters will not be regular run-of-the-mill men. They will pick strong, well built men who will try everything to convince them to take the test and join the Army. They will be sent to a war we don't even belong in. We, the U.S., are like the strong kid who thinks he can beat everyone at the playground. We pick fights for no reason. Then we walk away not caring who got hurt or who died."
Debra Sweet, Director, The World Can't Wait
See Shut Down the AEC for ongoing news on the effort to shut down this project.
{Thank you Rena for bringing this story to our attention}
Seven Counter-Recruiters Arrested at Philadelphia Mall over Predatory Recruiting
Some 300 veterans, military families, religious leaders and voters decry the Army pilot program that entices teens with violent video games
May 6, 2009
Philadelphia, PA — Several hundred demonstrators from a coalition of 30 national and regional veteran, youth and peace groups, including the Iraq Veterans Against the War, Veterans for Peace, BuxMont Coalition for Peace Action, Student Peace Action Network, protested what they claimed were unethical military recruitment of teenagers at Franklin Mills Mall in northeast Philadelphia.
The protesters rallied at a church, then marched one mile to the Franklin Mills mall where dozens of police blocked them from entering the “Army Experience Center” (AEC). After nearly an hour of chants of “War is no game, shut down the Army Experience Center” and speeches, Bob Smith of the Brandywine Peace Community (a member of United for Peace and Justice, a coalition of 1,300 national and local organizations) delivered a criminal complaint (4) to a Captain at the AEC and to a representative of the mall’s parent company, The Simon Property Group, Inc. After two police warnings, hundreds of protesters continued to chant and listen to speeches by Col. Wright and others, until the police arrested seven conducting civil disobedience by refusing to leave. Forced out of the mall, people continued to vigil and listen to songs by the Granny Peace Brigade outside the “red” entrance to the mall.
“The Army Experience Center is an abomination. It epitomizes the turn for the worse that the military was forced to take over the last eight years. It is misleading. It targets impressionable minors, and it propagates the glorification of war. I am utterly disgusted that the Army which I loved and in which I served so long has resorted to such a deceiving recruiting strategy,” said Sergeant Jesse Hamilton, who served nine years in the Army including tours in Iraq. After receiving and honorable discharge, he joined Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW).
Elaine Brower, 53, who sits on the board of Peace Action of Staten Island, was one of those taken to jail. She has been organizing against the AEC because she is the mother of a Marine who just returned from his third tour of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Col. Anne Wright, former State Department official of 16 years shouted, “We demand that our policy isn’t militarism but diplomacy.”
Critics of the AEC point out that it is not acceptable for alcohol, cigarette, pornography, gun manufacturers and pharmaceutical companies to market to thirteen year olds. They claim those decisions are for adults and dying for something you believe in is also an adult decision.
One of the religious leaders present, Rev. Bob Moore, the director of the Coalition for Peace Action, preached, “War is not fun and exciting; War is hell on earth. If you’re not old enough to drink you are not old enough to kill. No recruiting of our children!” He organized one hundred people to attend the protest.”
With American’s saying they want troops home from Iraq and becoming more concerned about our troops in Afghanistan, the military is finding it more difficult to recruit youth who disagree with U.S. foreign policy. “In its desperate approach to meet recruiting numbers, the military is teaching the wrong values to teenagers. Sugarcoating combat experience with virtual war is a dishonor to those with real war experience. That’s why the Student Peace Action Network (SPAN) works with young veterans, and high school and college students across the country for truth and honor in recruiting,” stated Jonathan Williams, Span’s coordinator.
Police estimated over 200 participants while organizers claimed nearly 300 attended the rally at St. Luke’s United Church of Christ, then marched with one lead 12’ by 3’ banner that said, “War is No Game, Close-down Army Experience Center” along Knights Road to the AEC where an enlarged version of the criminal complaint was handed over and stated, in part, “THAT: the Army Experience Center is therefore involved in the “Criminal Solicitation of Minors” – soliciting underage persons to act in a violent manner and thereby promoting and supporting criminal and corrupt behavior…”
The Pentagon is committed to establishing “Experience Centers” in malls across the country. The $13 Million, 14,500 square foot facility at Franklin Mills Mall boasts dozens of video game computers and X-Box video game consoles with various interactive, military-style shooting games as well as Apache helicopter and Humvee simulators that allow teens to simulate the killing of Arabs and Afghans. Philadelphia Inquirer reporter Rob Watson compares the Army Experience Center to “a heavy dose of candy cigarettes.” (3) 200 packs of candy cigarettes were handed out with Watson’s column at the protest.
After leaving the indoor skateboard park across from the AEC, one teenager wearing a helmet and kneepads, with skateboard in tow, quipped “skateboards are the solution,” after grabbing a “War Isn’t Working,” Peace Action, bumper sticker.
PeaceAction Montgomery, Coalition for Peace Action, Peace Action of Staten Island and BuxMont Coalition for Peace Action are all affiliates of Peace Action and helped organize the protest.
http://www.hotindienews.com/2009/05/06/102060
For more information: http://shutdowntheaec.net
Peace Action Founded in 1957, the United States’ largest peace and disarmament organization, with over 100,000 paid members and nearly 100 chapters in 34 states, works to abolish nuclear weapons, promote government spending priorities that support human needs, encourage real security through international cooperation and human rights, and support nonmilitary solutions to the conflicts with Afghanistan, Iran and Iraq. http://www.Peace-Action.org
Peace Action Education Fund’s, Student Peace Action Network (SPAN) works with students on over 100 campuses nationwide. http://www.StudentPeaceAction.org
Tulsa Peace Fellowship's counter-recruitment update/digest for June 2009
page 1
The Youth PROMISE Act
The Youth PROMISE Act, introduced into the U.S. House by Bobby Scott (D-VA-03) and Congressman Mike Castle (R-DE) and in the Senate by Robert Casey (D-PA) and Olympia Snowe (R-ME), implements the best policy recommendations from crime policy makers, researchers, practitioners, analysts, and law enforcement officials from across the political spectrum concerning evidence and research-based strategies to reduce gang violence and crime. The Youth PROMISE Act is a bold plan for addressing youth violence in all sectors of society by delivering funding to programs on the ground effectively doing the work of youth violence prevention.
The legislation calls for hundreds of millions of dollars to fund prevention programs, which could include many of the organizations we have worked with and promoted over the years, including Tariq Khamisa Foundation, Barrios Unidos, Challenge Day, our friends doing restorative justice work, NVC training and so many others.
Under the Act, communities facing the greatest youth gang and crime challenges will each form a local council called a Promise Coordinating Council ("PCC") which will:
Include representatives from law enforcement, court services, schools, social service organizations, health and mental health providers and community-based organizations, including faith-based organizations.
Develop a comprehensive plan for implementing evidence-based prevention and intervention strategies that target young people at risk for gang involvement in addition to those who have already become a part of the cycle of violence in an effort to empower them toward productive and law-abiding alternatives.
This legislation is the first step toward building a metrically driven culture of violence prevention and reduction. It builds local structures for decision making and oversight that must document measurable impact in the communities. Through this legislation we will finally see a set of best practices translated from the field in an institutionalized manner that will allow for effective replication around the country.
This will save lives AND money.
More on The Youth PROMISE Act:
On Friday, February 13, 2009, Congressman Robert C. "Bobby" Scott (D-VA-03) and Congressman Mike Castle (R-DE-AL) re- introduced the Youth Prison Reduction through Opportunity Mentoring, Intervention, Support and Education, or Youth PROMISE Act. Companion legislation was also introduced in the US Senate by Senators Robert Casey (D-PA) and Olympia Snowe (R-ME).
The Youth PROMISE Act implements the best policy recommendations from crime policy makers, researchers, practitioners, analysts, and law enforcement officials from across the political spectrum concerning evidence- and research-based strategies to reduce gang violence and crime. Under the Youth PROMISE Act, communities facing the greatest youth gang and crime challenges will each form a local council called a Promise Coordinating Council ("PCC"). The PCC will include representatives from law enforcement, court services, schools, social service organizations, health and mental health providers and community-based organizations, including faith-based organizations. The PCC will then develop a comprehensive plan for implementing evidence-based prevention and intervention strategies. These strategies will target young people who are at risk of becoming involved, or who are already involved in, gangs or the criminal justice system to redirect them toward productive and law-abiding alternatives.
The bill also provides for law enforcement support through "Youth Oriented Policing Services" (YOPS), and a victim/witness assistance program. New provisions of the Youth PROMISE Act this year provide additional grants to high intensity gang localities to reduce or alleviate the effects of gang violence, and grants to localities to fund police and community collaborative programs to provide crime prevention, research, and intervention services designed to prevent crime by at-risk youth and youth gang members.
"I have long believed that the best way to reduce violence in this country is through prevention, and the Youth PROMISE Act does just that," said Rep. Castle. "We must engage youth in positive ways through education, after school programs, sports, as well as family and community support to keep kids away from the dangers of gangs and other violent activities."
The Youth PROMISE Act was supported last Congress by over 200 national and state juvenile justice, civil rights, education and religious organizations, including Fight Crime: Invest in Kids, the National Juvenile Defender Center, the Justice Policy Institute, the NAACP Washington DC Office, the Coalition for Juvenile Justice, and the Campaign for Youth Justice, among others. We expect that list to continue to grow this Congress.
Visit online: http://www.bobbyscott.house.gov/
For more information on the legislation, please check out the material provided by the sponsor's office.
Hundreds protest Afghan civilian killings
May 10, 2009
ABOUT 1000 students marched in the Afghan capital Sunday to protest against the alleged killing of scores of civilians in US air strikes.
Chanting “Death to America”, “Death to the biggest terrorist” and “long live Islam,” they held banners reading “The blood of the Farah martyrs will never dry” and “USA is the world's biggest terrorist”.
Another banner demanded that “the murderers of more than 180 martyrs of Farah” go on trial, said the photographer, who estimated crowd numbered up to 1,000.
The toll from air strikes and ground fighting with Taliban in Farah province's Bala Buluk district nearly a week ago is disputed.
President Hamid Karzai has said that 125-130 civilians, including children and women, were killed in the strikes alone. Other Afghan officials have issued differing tolls, one as high as 167.
The Afghan tolls would make the Farah incident one of the deadliest for civilians in foreign military strikes since the US-led led the 2001 invasion that ousted the hardline Taliban regime.
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,25456850-5005961,00....
US accused of illegal white phosphorus attack in Afghanistan
By Stephen C. Webster
May 10, 2009
United States forces in Afghanistan are accused of illegally deploying white phosphorus against civilians following a firefight with Taliban militants, according to published reports.
White phosphorus is legal to use on a battlefield but illegal to deploy for any reason other than illumination. The chemical ignites on contact with the air. Human rights groups said using the substance in populated, civilian areas is a war crime, but the United States is not a signatory to any treaty which entirely bans its use.
“The American military denied using the incendiary in the battle in Farah province — which President Hamid Karzai has said killed 125 to 130 civilians.
Marc Garlasco, senior military analyst at Human Rights Watch and a former senior Pentagon intelligence analyst, said "there has been widespread and regular use of white phosphorus by US and NATO forces in Afghanistan,” reported the Mail Online.
Dr Mohammad Aref Jalali, the head of an internationally funded burns hospital in Herat, said villagers taken to hospital after the incident had ‘highly unusual burns’ on their hands and feet that he had not seen before,” reported The Guardian. “We cannot be 100% sure what type of chemical it was and we do not have the equipment here to find out. One of the women who came here told us that 22 members of her family were totally burned. She said a bomb distributed white power that caught fire and then set people’s clothes alight.”
“The stories that are emerging are quite frankly horrifying,” a United Nations official told the Guardian.
“Local villagers went to the mosque to pray for peace. Shortly after evening prayers the air strikes were called in, and they continued for a couple of hours whilst the villagers were frantically calling the local governor to get him to call off the air strikes.”
Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai demanded the United States call a halt to its air strikes, cautioning that the attacks were turning civilians against Western forces.
U.S. General James L. Jones told ABC’s “This Week” that he refused to “tie the hands of our commanders."
http://rawstory.com/08/news/2009/05/10/us-accused-of-illegal-white-...
Dad wants sensible answer for soldier's training death
By Erin Sullivan, St. Petersburg Times Staff Writer
May 24, 2009
Last June, a 20-year-old soldier training to be a Green Beret died during an exercise near Fort Bragg, N.C.
The Army said Norman "Ehren" Murburg III was bitten by a 39-inch water moccasin on his left hand.
He died alone, 400 yards from his next checkpoint. His body was found the next day.
The snakebite story never made sense to his father, Mike Murburg. His son grew up outdoors on their rambling 5 acres in Darby, a rural area in northern Pasco County. He hunted, fished. He knew all about snakes.
But the Army said snakebite, and, back then, Mike trusted the Army.
Then, just a few weeks ago, an officer from Special Forces and an investigator came to Mike's home.
They said maybe the cause of death wasn't a snakebite after all. But they didn't know what it was.
"Excuse me,'' Mike said, "but I think my son should be present for this discussion.''
He walked to his bedroom and returned with an urn of ashes — some of Ehren's remains.
Mike, a bear of a man at 6 feet 5 inches, placed the urn on the coffee table in front of the men sitting on his sofa.
He sat back down.
"Continue."
remainder of article: http://www.tampabay.com/news/military/article1003728.ece
Tulsa Peace Fellowship's counter-recruitment update/digest for June 2009
page 2
Iraqis demand death for US soldier convicted of rape-murder
May 09, 2009
IRAQIS have called for the execution of former US soldier Steven Dale Green, who faces the death penalty after being convicted of raping an Iraqi teenager and executing the girl and her family.
Relatives and residents in Mahmudiyah, a small agricultural community south of Baghdad where five US soldiers committed one of the most chilling crimes of the war involving American troops, said the jury should condemn Green to death.
"We are now waiting for the American judiciary to carry out what is its humanitarian responsibility -- to do the right thing by giving the strongest punishment to this criminal," said Um Mohammad al-Janabi, a relative of the family.
Green was found guilty on Thursday on all 17 charges - including rape, premeditated murder and obstruction of justice - by a federal jury in a Kentucky civilian court.
Three other soldiers who also took part in the March 2006 atrocity in Babil province's Mahmudiyah were given life sentences by a military court.
A fourth, who acted as lookout, was jailed for 27 months.
Green was accused of being the leader of the gang rape of a 14-year-old Iraqi girl in the town of about 50,000, and of killing her, her father, mother and six-year-old sister.
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,25452024-5005961,00....
follow up:
Civilian jury spares ex-soldier death penalty for Iraq murders, rape; sentence will be life
05-21-2009 6:09 PM
By Brett Barrouquere, Associated Press Writer
PADUCAH, Ky. (Associated Press) -- An ex-soldier convicted of raping and killing an Iraqi teen and murdering her family was spared the death penalty Thursday and will serve a life sentence after jurors couldn't agree unanimously on a punishment.
Former Pfc. Steven Dale Green of Midland, Texas, will be formally sentenced Sept. 4 by U.S. District Judge Thomas B. Russell. Jurors who convicted Green on May 7 told Russell they couldn't agree on the appropriate sentence after deliberating more than 10 hours over two days.
In a March 2006 attack in Mahmoudiya, about 20 miles south of Baghdad, Green and three other soldiers went to the home of 14-year-old Abeer Qassim al-Janabi. Green shot and killed the teen's mother, father and sister, then became the third soldier to rape the girl before killing her.
Green's attorneys never denied Green's involvement in the attack. Instead, they focused on trying to build a case that Green didn't deserve the death penalty.
Associated Press Writer Kristin M. Hall contributed to this report.
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.
http://tulsa.cox.net/cci/newsnational/national?_mode=view&_stat...
U.S. service member kills 4 or 5 fellow troops in Iraq
BAGHDAD - A U.S. service member opened fire on fellow members of the military, killing four and wounding several others, at the main U.S. base in Baghdad, officials told NBC News on Monday.
The toll was the highest for U.S. personnel in a single attack since April 10, when a suicide truck driver killed five American soldiers with a blast near a police headquarters in the northern city of Mosul.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30678715/
More coverage:
U.S.-IRAQ: Fragging Massacre Puts War Trauma Under the Spotlight
By Aaron Glantz
More than 230 active soldiers, airmen and marines committed suicide last year - the highest military suicide statistic in nearly 30 years. In January, more U.S. soldiers killed themselves than died in Iraq and Afghanistan combined.
In November 2006, a New York National Guardsman was arraigned in a military court on charges of murdering two officers in an explosion at one of Saddam Hussein's former palaces.
The series of incidents leaves some observers to recall the military's internal meltdown during the Vietnam War.
"In December of 1972, the Defence Department acknowleged that somewhere between 800 and 1,000 officers had actually been blown up by their subordinates," explained Vietnam war widow Penny Coleman, author of the book 'Flashback: Post Traumatic Stress Disorder: Suicide and the Lessons of War'.
After eight years of war in Afghanistan and six years of war in Iraq, the Pentagon reports nearly 800,000 U.S. soldiers have served more than one tour in the war zone. According to the non-partisan Rand Corporation, approximately 300,000 Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder or major depression, while another 320,000 have sustained a traumatic brain injury, physical brain damage often caused by roadside bombs and mortars.
"The first impulse is to be angry at a service member for taking lives, that's the first inclination," Montalvan added, "but then you can't help but ask: 'What caused this person to be this upset, this angry?' And the likely conclusion is that this person could not get help."
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=46803
TPF comment: "Fragging" is a misnomer, in the above headline. Friendly-fire would seem to be the euphemism most accurate for this tragic and unnecessary massacre. But as the commentary below suggests, "fratricide" may also apply.
op/ed piece:
Fratricide at Camp Liberty
Wednesday 20 May 2009
by: Camillo "Mac" Bica, t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Sergeant Russell's behavior in killing other than the enemy is not an aberration if one includes the 20 percent who admit to killing noncombatants. While apologists search for answers in issues of professionalism, family, relationships, finances, etc., there is a far more reasonable explanation of the conditions that led to these murders - one that is straightforward and foundational. Military training - creating soldiers who will kill - reinforced by combat, the "growth experience" that General Casey referred to, and impacted by multiple tours with inadequate dwell time, traumatized and dehumanized Sergeant Russell and the others turning them into murderers capable of such atrocity. This is why war is an outrage and unnecessary war sacrilege. This is why we cannot accept the military programming our young people to kill. This is why we cannot support the architects of war, no matter their political party. This is why we cannot not tolerate the Army Experience Center, a multi-million-dollar recruitment video-game arcade in Philadelphia, where children as young as thirteen are manipulated into believing that war is a game. This is why we cannot sit back and be patient while war and occupation continue. This is why we must reject the "Obama is doing his best with the wars he inherited" excuse and be out there in the streets yelling and screaming for peace.
Think for a moment how you would feel should an Army representative show up at your front door and tell you that your son or daughter will be coming home piecemeal in a box. Would you still think patience was a virtue? Or would you forever regret accepting that continued violence was necessary and ending war takes time?
Think for a moment how you would feel should your child be killed by an occupier's bomb and then hear her murderers render her death insignificant as collateral damage. Would you still welcome the invaders as liberators? Or would you strap dynamite to your chest to avenge your child's slaughter?
RAVE TO THE GRAVE! Demand an end to war and occupation. Now, not later. Someone's child is dying while we wait. You copy?
http://www.truthout.org/052009K?n
byline:
Camillo "Mac" Bica, Ph.D., is a professor of philosophy at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. His focus is in ethics, particularly as it applies to war and warriors. As a veteran recovering from his experiences as a United States Marine Corps Officer during the Vietnam War, he founded, and coordinated for five years, the Veterans Self-Help Initiative, a therapeutic community of veterans suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. He is a long-time activist for peace and justice, a member of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War, and the coordinator of the Long Island Chapter of Veterans for Peace.
Tulsa Peace Fellowship's counter-recruitment update/digest for June 2009
backpage
Soldiers In Afghanistan Given Bibles, Told To "Hunt People For Jesus" (video)
May 4th 2009
A U.S. church raised money to send Bibles, printed in the Pashtu and Dari languages, to American soldiers stationed in Afghanistan, a report on Al Jazeera documented.
It is against military rules to proselytize -- a regulation one of the soldiers filmed by the network readily acknowledged. "You cannot proselytize, but you can give gifts," says the soldier. It is a crime in Afghanistan to attempt to convert anyone from Islam to any other religion. "I also want to praise God because my church collected some money to get Bibles for Afghanistan. They came and sent the money out." The footage is said to be roughly a year old.
The Al Jazeera report also shows a military preacher urging army parishioners to "hunt people for Jesus."
"The Special Forces guys, they hunt men. Basically, we do the same things as Christians. We hunt people for Jesus. We do, we hunt them down. Get the hound of heaven after them, so we get them into the Kingdom. That's what we do, that's our business," he says.
A military spokesman did tell Reuters, however, that none of the Bibles were, as far as she knew, ever actually distributed.
"That specific case involved a soldier who brought in a donation of translated Bibles that were sent to his personal address by his home church. He showed them to the group and the chaplain explained that he cannot distribute them," said Major Jennifer Willis.
"The translated Bibles were never distributed as far as we know, because the soldier understood that if he distributed them he would be in violation of general order 1, and he would be subject to punishment."
President Bush created an international uproar when he referred to the "war on terror" as a "crusade."
videolink: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/04/soldiers-in-afghanistan-g_...
file under: The barbarians are at it again, claiming to be civilized
Major exposé of right-wing religious bias in the U.S. Military: Harper's Magazine
--Conversion at the point of a sword, or at the muzzle of a gun
"The crusade for a Christian military"
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2009/05/0082488
--available online but only to Harper's subscribers--
Tulsa Peace Fellowship's counter-recruitment update/digest for June 2009
masthead
who we are:
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
If you have not already done so, please join the new social networking tool for TPF on Ning, in lieu of TPFtalks on yahoogroups, which has fallen into disuse Thank you! You can check out our new tool here: http://tulsapeacefellowship.ning.com/ (new for 2009) Also still going strong: our announcement list on yahoo! tulsapeace@yahoogroups.com (since 2002) Go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/ and search for "tulsapeace"
Through its counter-recruitment task force, TPF is a member of the
National Network in Opposition to the Militarization of Youth (NNOMY)
On the web: http://www.nnomy.org/joomla/index.php?option=com_content&task=v...
Tulsa Peace Fellowship is non-partisan, and is open to 3rd parties, progressive Dems, libertarians, etc. TPF is the activist wing of the peace movement in Eastern Oklahoma "Waging Peace One Person at a Time".
Peace House-Tulsa is an incubator for peace and justice. The Peace House building can host a wide range of activities: classes, discussion groups, meditation, music-making, social gatherings, retreats, etc. While some activities may be limited by the size and amenities of this building, our imaginations need not be limited!
If you enjoyed this news digest and/or found this update useful, please consider making a donation of time, money, or effort to the Tulsa Peace Fellowship. Details on tax status available.
info for TPF counter-recruitment-- contact by phone 918 906 0828
The next regular meeting of the Fellowship will be held
on Thursday, June 11 2009, 6:15 PM – 7:30 PM
--including members from other local non-partisan groups such as the Tulsa chapter of “Season for Non-Violence,” the Tulsa University chapter of Amnesty International, ImpeachOK1.org, TulsaTruth.org, the Center for Racial Justice in Tulsa, and the Tulsa Interfaith Allliance.
--including a meeting of the counter-recruitment campaign activists
Come join us! Especially parents, guardians, and students in the Tulsa Public Schools system who are interested in countering the presence of military recruiters on school grounds.
An archive of TPF counter-recruitment updates and other related TPF material is available to members online:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/tulsapeace/
You must sign in to yahoo! groups to see the archived "message history"
TPF messages have been archived online since 2002
TPF was founded some 30 years ago.
Current membership online: 701 subscribers
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.
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